Design is not an Afterthought

I recently found myself in the hospital for a routine check-up. Let’s call it routine—spare you the gory details. What struck me wasn’t just the awkward squeak of the well-worn chairs or the eerie glow of harsh fluorescent lights. It was the complete lack of consideration for the design of the experience. Waiting there, feeling like I had just wandered onto the set of a low-budget horror movie, I couldn’t help but think: Does it have to be this way?

The answer is no. And the solution isn’t just better chairs or softer lights. It’s a more fundamental issue: businesses, hospitals, and industries far removed from the arts fail to incorporate principles of good design into their processes, experiences, and services.

Courtesy of WIX Media

What Is Good Design, Anyway?

Daniel H. Pink, in A Whole New Mind, asserts that design is more than aesthetics—it’s a fundamental way of thinking. Good design, as Don Norman elaborates in The Design of Everyday Things, isn’t just about how something looks but also how it works. It’s about usability, constraints, affordances, and delight. A well-designed product or service anticipates user needs, minimizes friction, and creates a seamless, intuitive experience.

Norman highlights two core principles of good design:

1. Affordances: Features that intuitively signal their use. A handle invites pulling; a button invites pressing.

   
   

2. Constraints: Design elements that guide behavior by limiting possibilities. A USB port only fits one way, ensuring proper use.

   
   

Yet, in many industries, these principles are treated as afterthoughts, if considered at all. Businesses tend to focus on efficiency, budgets, and timelines, often neglecting the human experience altogether.

Consider the case of troubleshooting problems when human error is involved. You hear it sometimes as a “PICNIC”: Problem In Chair, Not In Computer. The name itself gives you a sense of how such problems are treated. Human error? No fix needed. Retrain personnel, punish if warranted, and change them if needed. Our “Five Whys” abruptly ends as soon as we uncover that a human being was involved in a mistake. And so the errors are compounded.

Why did this person make that mistake? Was it a failure to constrain their possible choices? Were affordances not built into the system to guide usage? People make mistakes, yes. But many mistakes can be minimized through good design. Simply blaming people is a cop-out.

What Happens When Design Takes the Lead?

Businesses across industries are discovering that design thinking is not a luxury, but a necessity for innovation and competitive advantage. By incorporating design principles into every stage of development, organizations can create more responsive, engaging, and effective solutions.

Industries like media and entertainment offer powerful examples of what’s possible when design is integrated into every aspect of a project. Take the development of Netflix's Arcane, a 22-Emmy-winning animated series that redefines collaboration across teams, disciplines, and continents.

The creators at Riot Games and Fortiche Production Studios approached Arcane with a "design-first" mindset. From storyboarding and prototyping to character development and world-building, every step was deeply rooted in visual and experiential storytelling. Emotion was at the core of everything they did. Creatives led the way, bringing in elements they were accustomed to when managing the enormous project that is a season of a TV series:

• User-Centered Research: Riot knew their users well, leveraging deep insights from years of experience as a game developer, watching and engaging with their players daily to understand their experiences, constraints, and desires.

  
  

• Empathy Mapping: They took their knowledge and focused on elements of it necessary for their series, namely the feelings associated with the in-game characters, to achievea deep understanding of user emotions and potential pain points.

  
  

• Storyboarding: The team developed detailed visual guides, ensuring alignment across creative and technical teams.

  
  

• Holistic Prototyping: Rough animation and 3D mockups allowed for iterative testing and refinement before final production.

  
  

• Cross-disciplinary collaboration: Artists, writers, engineers, and producers worked separately due to their locations, COVID-19, and their disciplines, but also as a cohesive unit, with shared goals, timelines, and a unified vision.

  
  

The result? A product that didn’t just entertain—it resonated. Viewers were transported to a world so rich and detailed it breaks away from everything that came before it, an achievement born from meticulous design thinking.

Applying Design to Business Processes

Why should a hospital, or any business, care about storyboarding or prototyping? Because these tools can transform how companies approach problem-solving, innovation, and execution. Here are a few best practices:

1. Prototype Early, Learn Fast: Borrow from the tech and media industries by testing ideas early with minimal investment. Think of this as an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) for business processes. For instance, redesigning patient check-ins at a hospital could start with a simple paper prototype before investing in an app.

   
   

A point of order here: People usually say to fail fast, but I disagree. Making failure an expectation of a project or diminishing its impact by putting a positive spin on it is dangerous. Instead, aim to learn fast. When mistakes happen, they happen only once. When failure happens, it is deconstructed, dissected, and leveraged to learn and improve for the future. Failure is not the goal here. The lessons that come from it are.

2. Use Storyboarding for Clarity: Storyboarding isn’t just for movies. Mapping out customer journeys, like the steps a patient takes from check-in to discharge, can highlight pain points and opportunities for improvement.

   
   

3. Focus on Usability: Treat every deliverable—whether it’s a product, service, or process—as something that needs to be intuitive. Are the constraints clear? Are the affordances obvious? If not, revisit the design.

   
   

4. Embrace Collaboration: Diverse teams bring fresh perspectives. Take a cue from Arcane—break down silos and encourage cross-functional input.

   
   

5. Prioritize the User Experience: Whether the "user" is a patient, customer, or employee, their experience should drive every decision.

   
   

Designing the Future: A Strategic Imperative

Back in that hospital waiting room, I didn’t just see peeling paint and flickering lights. I saw an opportunity—a reminder that everything can be designed better. The hospital, like many organizations, was focused on efficiency at the expense of humanity.

Businesses can’t afford to make the same mistake. Whether you’re creating a healthcare system, a tech product, or a Netflix original, design isn’t a luxury—it’s a necessity. Because at the end of the day, good design isn’t just about making things pretty. It’s about making them work for people.

And we could all use a little more of that.