Why Money needs Design

It is not uncommon for fresh design graduates to feel completely oblivious to how money works. Design schools excel at teaching the craft and dynamics of their respective design disciplines. Students become highly talented individuals with their own set of tools and specialties. However, because their design projects are often confined within the academic structure, the relevance of design in business is sometimes lost. It's great that students focus on the needs of stakeholders, and that's how the design process should be rightly conducted. But why does the huge gap between design and business exist?

In essence, economics is built around incentives, while design is built around needs. On the surface, these appear very close to each other, almost like near cousins. These fields have been associated with each other since the Industrial Revolution, no doubt. Both deal with creating some sort of output to achieve a desired goal. The purpose of this output is to create value—something that people desire to invest their time and money into. However, the economics of design isn't spoken or written about enough and is something that is rarely understood by design teams. This often leads to conflicts between design teams and other business departments.

Design processes typically start with business or social objectives or insights that create the framework for further decisions. Starting with business objectives doesn't necessarily mean compromising on human-centricity—it provides a foundation of business understanding which design processes can help augment radically. Commercial awareness not only streamlines the design process from the early stages but also ensures on-time delivery, fulfilment of commercial objectives, and, thanks to design, more than satisfied stakeholders.

The beauty of the design process is its inclusivity—a well-trained designer can carry out design sprints within their organization, involving people from finance, marketing, engineering, customer services, law, and compliance, building a shared understanding of the importance of humanism in business. Commercial outcomes drive the majority of business decisions; hence, balancing business needs with customer needs can help bring immense value to and from users through designing thoughtful interactions. Each interaction in a product can help the user visualize values personal to them—such as the value of time, money, emotion, assistance, etc. To achieve this, interactions need to be designed with incentives in mind, for which designers should familiarize themselves with economic principles.

User-centered design that occurs alongside labor and capital early on in the product development process can create meaningful value. These collaborations ensure that the right incentives are being met and a product is perceived as valuable enough to be accepted by society. Every choice we make is an evaluation of cost and benefit.

One example that illustrates the importance of collaboration between economists and designers is "friction costs"—something that occurs when a user is unable to obtain a desired goal. An economist might think that to increase perceived value, all friction costs should be removed, which can be helpful when too many steps or unclear navigation distract the user. However, small friction costs can benefit the users largely. For instance, when sending an email without attachments, your mail client might ask, "You wrote 'See the attachments' in your message, but there are no files attached. Continue anyway?" To prevent errors, friction costs may be added thoughtfully by the designer, and the overall value of the product will surprisingly increase. This acuity towards human needs is how businesses should leverage design to create a more valuable product.

Just as design has its principles, economics comes with its own set of behavioral principles. The psychologies behind these principles explain how people see and use products, deeming them successful additions to their lives. Both economists and designers want the same thing: to create value. So, doesn't it make sense that business and user incentives be aligned harmoniously?

Let me know your thoughts.