Filip Mishevski

Another day, another article about the ROI of UX design

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You: How is this article different from all the others?

· 8 min read

A clip from the Wu-Tang Clan’s C.R.E.A.M. video, the words appearing over it line by line: cash rules everything around me, get, dolla dolla bill.
Cash rules everything around me. via GIPHY

As designers, we are still -quite often & unfortunately- being asked about what we actually do and what is the value we factually bring??? This, of course, has to do with the maturity of our organisation and teams but also because we don’t know the answer ourselves and/or haven’t communicated it clearly. Let’s be honest, in some cases, we are demanding unconditional love from our stakeholders.

There have been numerous articles on this topic (links to few of my favourites at the bottom) but there has been no industry standard and a LOT of differing opinions. The opinions range from (paraphrased): “How dare they ask” to “You should have a detailed and updated Excel of your ROI with you at all times”. I think the answer is somewhere in the middle and towards the latter. I came to that realization after contemplating the topic with my colleagues Greg & Thomas in the past couple of months. Bellow are the insights that we got while on this soul-and-value-searching journey.

The simple thought that guided us throughout the process:

It all comes down to knowing your own value (1). Only then you can communicate it to others (2).

I will expand on these two key aspects further.

Key aspect 1: Knowing your own value

CEO: Ok, so what do you do exactly?

The simple answer “I design websites and apps” that we are giving during parties is not enough. What if the questions are more complex, for instance: Where does a UX designer bring value? There are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to this and that’s why we are often thought of as the make-it-pretty specialists.

The following list might help with giving the correct answer:

Unfortunately, no hidden acronym with the starting letters, except that it starts with the letters UI. To easily remember the items, have a look at the explanations below.

We understand

We are capturing, visualizing and validating requirements quickly by using service design methods and with UX research. We gain a valuable, deeper understanding of the problem and the behavior and mindset of our customers. We also help colleagues from other discipline understand.

Part of our job is understanding trends and imagining the future of the products we work on. These dots-on-the-horizon and strategy projects are often where our companies have the biggest ROI from UX even though it can‘t be measured in the short term.

We increase satisfaction

This is all about finding the appropriate solution to the identified problem. By making sure we have smooth flows & journeys we make sure we have happy customers who stay with us and even recommend us to their friends and family. We are one of the main factors that make sure there is a standard for quality and making sure it’s being met. Besides making sure complex things appear simple, we add elements of surprise and delight to spice things up and bring a smile to our customers.

We reduce costs

By designing great digital journeys, we reduce the load on our support centers. In some cases, we are reducing costs by designing apps that improve the productivity of our colleagues. Besides those direct business and customer benefits, we also reduce the need for rework by thing through all aspects of the problem and solution. Design systems are a big big part of the savings we can bring.

Last but not least, we are empowering our customers and saving them time. And time = money of course.

We get user stories ready

We improve the efficiency of teams, especially of the developers within them by providing clear and complete specs for implementation. With complete capturing of edge cases, specifying details for the interaction and exporting the needed assets and visuals, we make the user stories complete and make sure the development can go smooth and fast. We are also quick to respond in support mode and address technical constraints and make compromises when necessary.

We coach

We do the hands-on design work, but we also raise the levels of teams on the topics of customer centricity and design thinking through training and facilitation of workshops and alignment sessions. After a few sessions, the teams can work more efficiently and get to see their work through other lenses.

We reuse

We make sure there is alignment and consistency across touchpoints. We are designing in an efficient way enabling re-use of design and code. TLDR — we create design systems.

We sell

As we all know, good design sells. By designing our sales flows for ease of use and adding delight we are directly affecting conversion metrics. For existing flows, we propose alternatives to boost conversion even more. You can also add customer onboarding and retention in this area making it the most important one for the business.

We make pretty pictures (BONUS)

Flows have to be useful but HEY! Don’t underestimate the power of a pretty picture. We also do this, some with more success & experience than others. Visual designers or UX designers with that skill can be very very valuable for a team. Add an understanding of branding and marketing in the mix and you can do wonders.

Before you proceed, ask yourself:

You: In which of these areas do I bring value in?

Also, think of examples from your work that belong in these areas and can be referred to when communicating with your stakeholders.

Key aspect 2: Communicating the value to others (a.k.a. the tricky part)

CFO: That’s all fine but what about the numbers? Show me the money!

CFO: And V E R Y  I M P O R T A N T L Y don’t show me other’s people money, show me mine. Show me what it means for me and my company.

For the first part, the audience was UX designers so I knew I needed to communicate in savvy GIF’s. For the second part, well, that’s another story.

You can, of course, share the list from above along with your case studies. Your business stakeholders will get a better understanding of where you bring value but often, you need supporting arguments and the appropriate numbers to back up your claims and show how much value is that exactly.

In addition, you can share quotes and ROI numbers from other designers. Some of my favorites are at the end of the article.

Also, think about what you want to accomplish. Is it making a statement with the goal of taking UX more seriously within your company or with your clients? Is it growing your UX team or something entirely different? The goal will give you an idea about what numbers to look for and the narrative to support them.

And finally, as with everything else we design, you need to know your audience. What is appealing to them and what arguments might work, which not. Industry benchmarks might work in some cases but it’s often hard to take those and project them to your own businesses. What we identified in our quest is that for the “business side”, it all comes down to:

We think that everything we do can be mapped to these 3 “tags” and measured. Few perspectives on how to quantify your ROI based on these tags below.

Generating revenue

Just be careful to not be greedy and claim all of this is because of UX. Think about sharing the credit with your colleagues from other disciplines (more on this at the end), factor in seasonality and other possible variables.

Saving costs

Again, don’t be greedy and give credit where credit is due and consider all variables that contributed to the numbers.

Improving customer satisfaction

Remember the disclaimers from the previous two tags?

Parting thoughts and links below.

Before you go…

It’s a team effort

I hate to break it down to you but the impact is not only up to UX. There are at least 3 disciplines that contribute to the successful scoping, design, delivery and marketing of the feature. We are not even the only ones designing the solution. We have a lot of help in the process from our fellow developers and PO’s. So, we need to cut the profits in corresponding parts.

This is one of the challenges to come up with the ROI of (just) UX. Another challenge is not to destroy the relationships with our colleagues by claiming that they are contributing less than we are.

This place seems appropriate to give credit to my team: Thomas Kos & Gregory Ek. Thanks for the great ideas and inspiration buddies.

Value vs. Cost

Value is in the eye of the beholder. What’s valuable in one company might not be in another even though the salary and the work were identical. Always try to find companies that value you and where your work makes the biggest impact.

In case you need stronger arguments…

While searching for our value, I got inspiration from many quotes and articles from our fellow UXers. Below are just a few:

Thanks for sticking with me till the end.

Previously published on Medium.

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