ROI isn't the best way to talk about the value of UX; behavior change is
ROI isn't the best way to talk about the value of UX; behavior change is
Justifying the value of your work through money isn't helpful
I recently had to look up some arguments for talking about the "Return on Investment (ROI) of UX," and I was unimpressed with what I dug up.
There are better ways to describe the value of design work than ROI.
I'm not saying that design has no value. Businesses benefit from hiring designers, and designs can dramatically impact business outcomes. However, the term "ROI" is problematic because it usually refers to one thing: money.
Saving money isn’t why design is valuable: design helps change user behavior.
The myth of $1–$10–$100, and looking beyond monetary value
One of the landmark studies that many people use to talk about ROI is the 1–10–100 study. As Tom Glib supposedly says, "$1 spent fixing a problem during the design phase can save $10 fixing it in development, or $100 fixing it after release."
While the overall sentiment is true, it shows some flaws when discussing ROI in monetary terms.
First of all, these events aren't standardized. Perhaps there's a tiny usability issue on the homepage that we might claim can save $1000, but how about the issue buried in the user settings page? Moreover, how exactly do we justify certain price tags for issues that may span across multiple pages?
Secondly, ROI supposes the project was a success: after all, you get some return on your design. In addition, ROI cannot be calculated before release. What if the project fails? Can you claim anything other than an ROI of $0 in that case?
Lastly, and most importantly, developers aren't asked about the monetary value of their code. Whether their code snippets are part of a billion-dollar app or some free website, the value of their skill stack isn't determined based on monetary value. Our skill stack shouldn't be, either.
So, how should we show the value of design work? We can show that our designs create measurable behavior change.
The value of design lies in changing user behavior
On a fundamental level, designers are hired to change the behavior of their users. To explain why, let's look at a scenario around user testing.
Imagine that you did some user testing and discovered that your checkout process was complicated. Several workflow issues are causing some users to get stuck.
At its core, the business cares most about the fact that users aren't behaving the way that they want them to. It's easiest to understand this when we use the Why-What-How format:
Why (Business goal): Increase Conversion rate (from users to customers)
What (Current outcome): Users are getting stuck in checkout due to usability issues
How (Proposed solution): Fix the usability issues to make it easier to checkout.
Our design recommendation is to fix issues so users will change their behavior (e.g., finish checking out). This sort of behavior change is at the heart of every design project.
Were you asked to re-design a feature? The business is probably unhappy with how users behave with the current experience (e.g., abandoning it, leaving negative reviews, etc.).
Are you designing something new? It's most likely to change the behavior of specific user groups who come to your website, don't see anything that interests them, and leave.
When we realize that design is about changing user behavior, it allows us an easy way to talk about the value of our work. Why? Because these changes in behavior are easily reflected in product metrics.
Behavior change drives product metrics, which is our focus
When we try to measure and evaluate behavior change, we use Product Metrics. These product metrics are about evaluating user behavior early on and using it to predict if it will lead to meeting your business goals.
In our checkout process example, when we fix the usability problems, it should do a couple of things. We may see:
An increase in Revenue since more users buy something
An increase in Conversion, the amount of users who become customers
An increase in Task Completion, since people are completing tasks
An increase in user signups since the "Create an Account" page comes after checkout
etc.
While these changes may affect many metrics, you can do a few things to help with this process.
Changing user behavior may affect many metrics, and you may need to figure out what to mention. However, there are a few tips to help.
Focus on Product, not Business Metrics
I've mentioned this before, but we want to focus on Product Metrics because these metrics are about behavior change.
For example, if we're trying to change the behavior of "Giving up during checkout," that translates easily to the Product metric of "Task Completion Rate."
On the other hand, things get complicated if we choose a Business metric like "Revenue." While fixing usability issues may get more people to buy stuff, it might barely move Revenue (since Revenue may be based on more significant, non-UX factors like brand strategy).
Essentially, choosing metrics that directly showcase the behavior change helps showcase the design's value. As always, one last thing to mention: ask your boss if you don't know what product metrics are.
They've planned out which product metrics are most important to a project and should be able to point you in the right direction.
X-Y-Z, your behavior change
The other thing to recommend is that there is a template created by Laszlo Bock, a former Google senior vice president of personnel operation, to talk about behavior change:
Talking about your project in that format can help you determine the best thing to discuss.
In our checkout re-design, with Task Completion being our focus, we might be able to state the value of our design by saying:
My re-design Increased Task Completion of the checkout process by 20% by fixing several critical usability issues.
Talking using these sorts of terms can showcase the value of your process.
Justify the value of your work through behavior change
Many designers make the mistake of leaning into visual design to showcase the value of design work.
While that can sometimes show a dramatic change, and high-quality visuals are important, they may not be able to convey the overall impact of your design.
That, in turn, leads to many businesses not understanding why they should hire you if you're not designing new projects and features. It's essential to talk about the value of your design beyond high-quality visuals.
However, ROI is not the best way to do this. There are too many issues justifying the monetary value of design work, which may fail due to reasons outside your control (such as a scrapped project).
Instead, we should lean into behavior change. Behavior change is not only at the heart of what we do as designers: it's also easy to measure and evaluate, showcasing the impact of our work beyond pretty visuals.
So, if you need help talking about the impact of your work, focus on what behavior you want to change. After all, that's why we get hired to design something.
Kai Wong is a Senior Product Designer and Data and Design newsletter writer. His free book, The Resilient UX Professional, provides real-world advice to get your first UX job and advance your UX career.