A lot of digital work is built to photograph well on launch day and quietly decay afterwards. The launch post looks incredible; eighteen months later the product is a patchwork of quick fixes and the brand is three brands in a trench coat. We measure ourselves on the opposite: whether what we shipped still looks and works like the future years on.
Design for the second year
Building to last is mostly unglamorous: documenting components as you ship them, choosing boring infrastructure on purpose, writing the reconciliation logic before the feature that needs it. It rarely shows up in the launch screenshot. It always shows up in the second year.
Craft, in the end, is just respect for the person who inherits the work — including the future version of the client, and the future version of us.