Is design a luxury?
No, design isn’t a luxury, design happens whenever you have a human-made product.
A different matter is the quality and “intentionality” of the design exercise, or as Ralf Speth* put it:
If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design
Often buyers of technology think of design as a “nice to have”, something extravagant and “gold-plated” that you can do without if you are cost-conscious.
You may not think that your product needs to be “designed”, but I can guarantee that someone, somewhere in your digital programme is making design decisions that you will pay for but could have been avoided with some design thinking, from a very slow delivery, to poor user experience or inability to scale your product.
* Ralf Speth is the current CEO of Jaguar Land Rover with previous roles in BMW and Ford
