Picture this.

You're in a dusty downtown office, staring at a spreadsheet while someone across the table says,

We’ll invest in design after the product is working.

Ah, the age-old myth. The idea that design is decoration — the icing on the cake.
But let’s be honest: have you ever eaten a cake that was all icing and no structure?

Let’s Break It Down.

In East Africa — Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania — we’re watching businesses rush to digitize. Banks launching mobile apps. Government services going online. Startups scrambling to get MVPs out the door. Everyone wants to go digital.

But here’s the catch: you can’t build for digital transformation with a “let’s design later” mindset. Design isn’t what happens after you’ve built something, it is what helps you build the right thing.

A Lesson from a Button

Take this story. A real one.
A local business had a “Buy Now” button on their e-commerce site that looked like a regular text label. It didn’t have any padding, shadow, or feedback animation.

Users thought it wasn’t clickable. Sales dropped. Conversions tanked. And someone blamed marketing.

But it wasn’t marketing. It was design — or the lack of it. A button that doesn’t look like a button is just a word.

That’s how a tiny design decision created a big business loss. All because someone said, "Design is nice-to-have."

In East Africa, Design is the Shortcut to Trust

In our region, where users are often interacting with tech for the first time, where internet bundles are limited, phones are shared, and digital literacy varies, design isn’t fluff. It’s the map, the language, and the bridge.

When your app loads fast, your interface is simple, your text is legible, and your call-to-actions are clear — you don’t just make the product usable. You make it trustable.

And trust? That's gold. Especially in a market still warming up to digital platforms.

It’s Not Just UX. It’s Business.

We’ve heard this debate a thousand times:

But design costs money.

Sure, it does. So does poor user experience. In fact, it costs more — in complaints, in drop-offs, in bad reviews, and in expensive redesigns.

Ask any product team that had to rebuild a feature after launch because the users didn’t get it.
Or better yet, ask the support team that’s had to explain how to use a simple feature over and over again.

Design saves money by preventing confusion. It creates consistency, which builds familiarity. And familiarity? That builds loyalty.

Let’s Build With Design, Not Around It

At the Kampala Design Podcast, we believe the future of tech in East Africa depends not just on code, not just on funding, and definitely not just on copying Silicon Valley models.

It depends on how we build for people. For real humans with local challenges, low bandwidth, limited device capabilities, and high expectations.

Whether you're designing for boda riders, university students, rural traders, or Kampala’s banking elite — design is what makes your product usable, enjoyable, and profitable.