Good Digital Design Should Make Life Easier: 3 Signs Your Process Needs Rethinking

Michelle Fewster

Aug 14

4 min read

There is a particular kind of frustration that comes from doing something you know should be simple, only to find yourself opening three systems, copying the same information twice, waiting for an approval and then sending a message to make sure the next person knows it is their turn.

It is easy to assume that this is just how the process works. Often, it is not. It is simply how the process has evolved.

Businesses grow, teams change and new tools are added to solve immediate problems. Over time, what started as a sensible setup can become a collection of workarounds. The technology may technically work, but the experience of using it becomes harder than it needs to be.

Good digital design should make life easier, not harder.

That principle sits at the heart of the Digital Product & Technology work at M&M Digital Services. Before adding another platform, automation or layer of technology, it is worth asking whether the underlying process is actually helping the people who use it.

1. A simple task has too many steps

One extra click rarely feels like a problem. Neither does one approval, one spreadsheet update or one manual handoff. The problem appears when those small pieces stack up.

If a routine task needs a long set of instructions just to make sure it is completed correctly, the first instinct is often to document the process more carefully. Sometimes that is useful. But sometimes the better question is whether all of those steps should exist in the first place.

A good process review looks at the purpose behind each step. Does it genuinely reduce risk, improve quality or add information that is needed later? Or is it there because that is how two systems were made to work together years ago?

M&M Digital Services editorial graphic explaining that too many clicks, approvals and handoffs can signal a process that needs redesigning.

2. Your tools are connected, but the experience is not

Software is often introduced one problem at a time. A CRM solves one need. An invoicing tool solves another. A reporting platform, form builder, email system and project management tool are added later.

Individually, each tool can be perfectly good. The friction comes from what happens between them.

Someone exports a file from one system and uploads it to another. Customer details are stored in several places. A change has to be updated manually in multiple tools. Reporting becomes an exercise in reconciling versions of the same information.

This is why connected does not always mean considered. Good architecture looks at the whole journey: where data starts, where it needs to go, which system should be the source of truth and what the person using the process actually needs to do.

M&M Digital Services editorial graphic showing bolted-together business tools as connected puzzle pieces.

3. People have become the workaround

Most businesses have at least one person who quietly holds a process together.

They know which spreadsheet needs updating. They remember to chase the approval. They notice when a system has not triggered something it should have. They know the workaround nobody wrote down.

That knowledge is valuable, but relying on it is risky. A process that only works because one person remembers every hidden step is not really a reliable process. It is a manual safety net.

The aim is not to automate people out of the picture. It is to remove the repetitive remembering, copying, checking and chasing that technology can handle more consistently, so people can spend their time on the parts that need judgement, expertise and conversation.

M&M Digital Services editorial graphic about reducing reliance on people remembering every manual step in a business process.

What better digital design looks like

The answer is not automatically a new app or a large transformation programme. Often, meaningful improvement starts with understanding the current journey and removing unnecessary friction.

Fewer steps where a step adds no real value.
Clearer journeys so people know what happens next without needing a manual.
Better-connected tools with deliberate data flows rather than repeated copying and exporting.
Automation where it genuinely removes repetitive work or reduces the chance of something being missed.

M&M Digital Services editorial graphic summarising the principles of good digital design: fewer steps, clearer journeys, connected tools and useful automation.

A simple process review

If something in your business feels much harder than it should, start by mapping what actually happens today rather than what the process document says should happen.

What outcome is this process trying to achieve?
Which steps genuinely add value, control or useful information?
Where is information being copied, retyped or reconciled manually?
Where does someone have to remember to trigger the next action?
Could the tools, data or workflow be designed around the user more deliberately?

Those questions tend to reveal where the real friction sits. From there, the right answer might be a small workflow change, a better integration, an automation, a clearer data model or a completely redesigned digital product.

Technology should earn its place

Technology is useful when it removes friction, creates clarity or makes something possible that was not practical before. Adding technology without understanding the process underneath it can simply digitise the complexity that already exists.

At M&M Digital Services, our Digital Product & Technology work brings together IT consulting, AI, data, architecture, product thinking and automation to solve that problem from the foundations up. The goal is not more technology for the sake of it. It is a better way of working.

If there is a process in your business that regularly makes someone say, “there has to be an easier way to do this”, that is usually a very good place to start.