Painstaking Design: Why You Need to Be Finicky about Designing Anything and Everything (1)
I am writing about my appreciation and understanding of the design process and why it is important to go through that painstaking process in any endeavour that involves a considerable amount of capital intensity — time and other resources.
What is design, and how is it important to any product or project?
Design is a preliminary sketch or outline showing the main features of something to be executed (Merriam Webster Dictionary, 2021). What did you picture as a design while reading this definition? For me, what came to mind was what Amponsah, my tailor at Darkuman, sketched out before cutting out pieces and stitching them together to produce that beautiful suit I wore at Albright’s wedding. In my understanding, this definition is simply saying that a design is the depiction, or illustration, or indication of what an intended product, project, or process will look like when executed.
Let me try and make it even more relatable — that dream home you want to build, or are in the process of building will have a sketch, or drawing, or mock-up to show how it will look like before the artisans set out to put concrete, blocks, wood, nails, roofing sheets among others together to bring the project to life. That drawing, sketch, or mock up is what we call design. You may want to ask why design is so important that before setting out to put the structures in place for your building, there must be a one for it. The answer is simple — design affords you the chance to make costly errors in an inexpensive way.
What do I mean?
Let me tell you a story that will hit this home — Nate is a Ghanaian who left for the UK sometime back to make a living for himself and support his family back home. After spending close to fifteen years making some decent money he wants to return to Ghana, settle down, and to run a wholesale business in computer hardware. He however has a basic problem, he does not want to stay at his parents’ home because it’s quite crowded over there, and the house does not serve the purpose for which he intends to resettle in Ghana. Luckily for Nate, he had inherited a plot of land from his mom’s father. He quickly contacted his younger brother, Bob, and informed him that he wanted to return and settle in Ghana within the next three years. He therefore asked Bob to supervise the construction of a home and store on the land their grandfather willed to him. Bob was more than willing to do so.
Over the course of the next two weeks, Nate sends Bob some money to kick-start the building projects they had talked about. Nate, knowing his brother to be industrious, had no difficulty in doing so without necessarily checking in on the critical details of the project — He trusts that his money and his brother’s grit at getting things done will secure him what he wants. Six months down the road Bob sends pictures and videos of what has been built so far, which is at roofing level to Nate. Nate instead of being excited by this update was disappointed, and somewhat angry because the structure he saw was not as he had imagined — the individual rooms were all over the place; the bedrooms lacked their own bathhouses, and the area earmarked as the living room was too small. He quickly called Bob to arrange a call between himself and the leader of the construction team to immediately find a lasting solution to what he saw as the problem in the structure that was being built. The meeting yielded some solutions, although not ideal, and came with extra costs for Nate. What will you say was Bob’s mistake? Afterall, he was a hardworking brother who utilized the money that was provided to put up a structure for his brother, so where did he go wrong? Bob’s mistake was his initial failure to ask his brother to get a design produced based on what he had communicated as to the kinds of structure he wanted built for him. Or better still, he could have secured a design based on the descriptions he had received from his brother and had him validate it as fitting what he wanted.
What will a design have achieved?
Had there been a design followed by an exchange of ideas, no matter how tedious, it would have prevented the costly mistakes six months later, where large-scale alterations had to be made to the building, would have been avoided. The extra money used to redo the project could have gone into something more useful to the project if it had been designed properly.
The importance of the process of design cannot be overstated in any endeavour that involves the investment of significant time, and capital resources. Such an endeavour needs to go through the process which will ask the questions of durability, utility, and beauty. Nate had a pain point — he needed a building put up for him ahead of his resettlement to Ghana, in the end his pain point was not met to his satisfaction because the necessary questions were not asked and answered through the design process.
In answering the questions of what constitutes a painstaking design, one of the rules of thumb my professional mentor taught me to apply is the “Vitruvian virtues”. I’ll discuss their importance in designing anything and everything in detail using my next installment of this topic. The vitruvian principles are anchored on the thoughts of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, a Roman author, architect, civil and military engineer. He posited in his book, “de architectura”, that a structure must show the three qualities of durability, utility, and beauty. Sometimes termed the Vitruvian triad, these principles assert that in designing any building or structure, questions on the following must be answered;
- how strong the edifice is — it should be robust, in good condition, and be able to stand the test of time and changing conditions (durability),
- how useful it also is — the user should find it functional and fulfilling of the purpose for which it was built (utility), and
- whether or not it is beautiful — it should be pleasing to the eye, delight people and put them in good spirits.
These principles, I have come to understand, are not only useful to physically-built structures. They can also apply to any and everything that costs time and capital-intensive resources — think about the carpenter who makes that beautiful piece of furniture for your living room, what of the craftsman or woman who made that beautiful piece of jewelry you wear? You like their handiwork because they put some thought into designing them. Designing can be very tiring — but it’s worth the effort and the risk it saves us from taking.
Join me, as I take a deeper dive into why we need to design everything in my next installment of this series.
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