Why You Should Judge Books by Their Covers

Let’s say that you’ve just finished the book you’ve been reading, and you’re heading down to your local bookstore to find something new.

Sidenote: maybe you’re cool, and only read books on your tablet. Change out the local bookstore in this anecdote with your bookstore app-of-choice.

The Three-Part Selection Process

To see the importance of a book cover, and to understand why we should (partly) judge books by their covers, it’s important to talk about the process of selecting one to read. The selection process I’m about to describe is true for most people; not everyone is wired this way, but the large majority of us are.

As you walk through the aisles, or flip through the digital store, your brain is taking in the least amount of data necessary to make a decision. Our brains like simple, and they do their best to filter out unnecessary noise. To accomplish that, our brains break down the selection process into three parts.

Keep in mind that this whole process happens over the course of a few seconds.

Part One: The Title

Walking down the middle of the aisle, we read the title of each book, and make our first decision — or judgement — about them. We instantly decide whether or not they interest us.

There’s a reason that authors and publishers put so much care into selecting a title. If the title doesn’t seem interesting to us right off the bat, we don’t even give it a second thought. We continue on to the next book, and restart the process.

If the title interests us in any way, we continue to step two.

Part Two: The Cover

At this point, the title has caught our eye, but we’re probably still standing in the middle of the aisle. We then look at the cover, and its design.

If the cover is sloppy and cluttered, we will give up on the book almost immediately — our TL;DR reflex kicks in. Our brains would rather move on to something simpler, instead of spending too much time trying to understand a cluttered cover.

If the design of the cover isn’t cluttered, but has some elements in it that we don’t like, or that turn us off, we will probably continue on to the next book, and restart the process.

If the cover is clear, well-designed, and somehow draws us in, chances are that we will wander over to it, and pick the book up off the shelf.

Part Three: The Content

At this point, the book that we just picked up off the shelf has passed the first two tests — the carefully-selected title interested us, and the clear, well-designed cover drew us in.

We got an overview of the book from the title and cover, but now we want to find out what the actual content of it contains. We might read the back of the book for a description, or we might jump right in, to page one, and begin reading.

After a short time with the actual content, whether it’s the description on the back, or the first chapter, we make our final decision about the book. We either take the book up to the counter to purchase it, or we decide we don’t want it, set it back down on the shelf, and continue on our way.

Every Step Matters

For most of us to consider buying a book, it has to pass all three tests — the title has to interest us, the cover has to draw us in, and the content has to be something that we want to read. Each part of the selection process is more important than the last, and each part has more failure points than the last.

If any one part is lacking, the whole decision falls apart. What that means is that the author, publisher, and everyone else involved needs to put a lot of care into every step of the process.

We usually hear about how much effort the publishing team put into selecting a title that is simple, but still conveys their meaning. We usually hear how long the author spent writing, how many revisions it took to get the content right, and how proud the author is of the final revision.

What we don’t usually hear is how much time was spent designing the cover and packaging, how many revisions it took to get the cover just right, or how the author is intensely proud of the final design.

The cover is what draws people in. It is the face of the book. It is the single most recognizable piece of the product.

The cover is an extremely important piece of the selection process, and it needs some love from the publishing team.

Attention to Detail, and Care

Lack of care creates a feedback loop. As you care less and less about something, you care less and less about more things. Lack of care in one step of the process usually indicates lack of care in multiple parts of the process.

If a publishing team doesn’t care about the details of the title, chances are they won’t put a lot of care into the design of the product. If a publishing team doesn’t care about the details of the cover, they might not care about the details of the editing.

If one part of a book is made without care, it makes me wonder which other parts were made without care.

How is This Relevant to Anything?

Apply these concepts to any product, hardware or software, instead of a book.

If a site’s design is cluttered, sloppy, and hard to understand, chances are good that the same could be said about the code behind the site. If care was poured into the smallest details of an app’s interface, chances are good that the same level of care and thought was poured into the usability, stability, and overall experience of the app.

If a lack of care is evident in the cover of a book, or in the interface of an app or service, it is usually a good indicator that the same lack of care will be evident in things behind the scences.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. There are some really popular, horrible-looking sites. There are some really messy sites with great content.

However, when it is obvious how much care a team put into the making of something, it generally means that the entire experience was made with that level of care. Those are the products, apps, services, and sites that change our lives, and the world.