Why good design takes time

It’s easy to say “we care about design.” Most organizations do. But too often, design is treated as something that should happen quickly, cheaply, on the side or after the strategy and engineering work. The reality is that good design takes time and resources — and without that investment, you don’t get the returns.

Design is not decoration — it’s infrastructure. Just like you wouldn’t cut corners on plumbing or safety systems, you can’t expect design to deliver outcomes without proper investment. Strategy takes time to form and be tested. A design system takes time to build, but once in place, it saves countless hours of duplication. Usability testing takes effort, but it prevents costly mistakes in development and rollout.

Rushing design creates hidden costs. When flows are confusing or information unclear, users make mistakes, call support lines, or abandon products altogether. Employees work slower with bad tools, governments face citizen frustration, and schools see students disengage. What looks like “saving time upfront” often creates far bigger costs downstream.

Investing in design is investing in efficiency. Time spent understanding users, prototyping, testing, and refining pays back in reduced errors, smoother workflows, and better trust. The earlier you invest, the more you save — because the cost of fixing a poor design after launch is exponentially higher than designing it right from the start.

Resources matter too. Good design requires skilled people, space to test and explore, and collaboration across disciplines. If design is underfunded or isolated, it ends up superficial — a coat of paint rather than a foundation. Organizations that treat design as a strategic investment, on the other hand, build assets that compound in value: design systems, reusable patterns, institutional knowledge, and customer trust.

The truth is simple: you can’t want the benefits of good design without investing in it. If you want clarity, trust, and efficiency, you have to put in the time, the budget, and the focus. Design pays for itself, but only if you make the upfront commitment.

Start investing in design today. And that is not just about hiring designers, but empowering and enabling the rest of the org to appreciate and collaborate with design early and often.