To an entrepreneur who comes out of a business or technology background, design can seem like a mysterious X factor—something added to provide polish to the core service. We’ve found that people on the client side, no matter what the stage of their company or nature of the industry can sometimes treat “design” like a word of power. And designers for their part often play into the mystique, allowing themselves to be called “creatives” and failing to accurately advocate for or represent their role in the process.

Design is merely...