Bridging the design and business gap (w/Erin Young, Founder at SlideUX)

Insights on how can design be represented better in the business, involving design in right impact projects, team structure and performance measurement.

Apr 23, 2023

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Today in a special edition of Productify, we get into a conversation with Erin Young, Founder at Slide UX. This is particularly interesting and insightful edition for designers working closely with product and business teams and vice versa. The conversation is full of insights on how can design be represented better in the business, involving design in right impact projects, team structure and performance measurement.

(All views below are from Erin Young, in conversation with Bandan Jot Singh)

Businesses and business leaders are all about numbers, but spreadsheets and KPIs are not the sort of things that they teach in design school. As a result, designers may struggle to communicate effectively with business leaders. The value of UX contributions can come into question.

If you’re leading a team of designers (or want to ensure that their contributions are recognized, there are several steps you can take to bridge this gap.

Training designers on the business

Designers need to understand the products and services you sell, and how you sell them. Take the time to explain the industry and the acronyms. Seniors designers will definitely ask, but less experienced designers can be shy about asking questions for fear of looking uninformed. Make sure that appropriate training is a part of every designer’s onboarding process.

Include designers in conversations about business metrics and copy them on performance reports. Share the status of the overall business and the impacts of individual initiatives, and include them in brainstorms. You might be surprised by what happens when you add your most creative team members to the business roundtable

Through training and exposure, you can cultivate well-trained, business-savvy designers. When you hire experienced talent, look for designers who are curious about the business. A strong senior design candidate can explain how they've applied their business knowledge to fuel design recommendations.

Assign UXers to high-impact projects

As we all know, some projects create more value than others. Do we assign a design team to redesign the password reset screen, or do we ask them to improve the flow for getting a quote? Should they focus on the pixel-perfection of the internal design system, or develop their workshop facilitation skills?

Developers can solve many UI challenges on their own, using today’s UI conventions and the styles of your existing experience.

Assign designers to tough problems that will impact the business, and they’ll have a more exciting story to tell about their own value. Frame those problems with clear problem statements, existing data, and crisp business goals so designers have a basis upon which to make recommendations.

Short-Term vs. Long-Term Impact Tracking

Many product teams focus on running experiments and measuring the outcomes in a period of weeks or a couple of months. But some outcomes (like improved brand credibility) aren’t visible in short-term metrics.

Consider each problem, as well as broader values and expectations, and choose measurements that match the mission.

Broaden your view on how to showcase value, and help find the data needed to tell the story in a compelling way:

How much money did we save by not building the experience the wrong way?
How much did this improvement reduce support costs? What would that look like, annualized?
What might it cost if we lose the trust of our existing customers?

If there's an outcome you can't measure, but you have reason to believe it happened, make mention of it. These are important parts of the value of UX.

Increasing Visibility of UX in the Organization

Designers are often perfectionists and many of them feel most comfortable tinkering behind a screen. Your organization can contribute to a designer’s long-term career potential by encouraging visibility and pushing them gently into exposure.

When a product manager takes a concept before leadership solo, he or she may not put the best foot forward. A unified front can make presentations more convincing. Designers can often recall specific rationale, showcasing the thought that goes into design decisions. Designers can also ask questions that clarify business feedback.

When designers rely on product leaders to relay information, they give up some of the credit due to them, and lose a chance to make a deeper impression.

Where should UX sit in an organisation?

There are any possible org structures, and it's essential to find one that works for the organization.

UX can be its own reporting line, with a Chief Experience Officer (CXO) or Chief Design Officer (CDO) at the C-Level. This is especially appropriate for companies that aim to make design and experience a major differentiator. Unsurprisingly, many design thought leaders would say this is the only way to do it.
UX can report into product. The goals of product and UX are often tightly intertwined. This structure can make business goal tracking and resource allocation simpler. It can feel like a stretch to the product leader who isn’t always familiar managing designers.
UX can report into IT. This is a structure we often see, but it can feel like a stretch both to designers and the IT leader who isn’t always familiar managing designers.
Hybrid approach: In some organizations, a centralized platform UX team maintains a design system, while individual designers deploy to multi-function product teams. This can work for a multi-product organization, although individual product designers may feel isolated.

What’s best for your organization? It depends on your organization’s situation and needs.

How to measure performance of UX designers

Every employee needs to understand how he or she is performing, and UX is no exception.

In an agency environment like the one I work in, we set quarterly missions. We consider repeat business, feedback from clients, feedback from peers, distribution of time spent, and insights from client call reviews to gauge how our designers are performing.

In an in-house environment, managers should consider the outcomes of a designer’s assignments as well as 360-degree peer feedback.

If you ask non-UX stakeholders to provide input about your team, it’s important that understand what you expect of the UX designers. Define your company’s UX roles and clearly document what each role should deliver. Socialize these standards inside and outside the UX organization to ensure that everyone understands expectations and evaluates against the same rubric.

As a manager, you must trust your reports and they must trust you. When you trust your report, you will give them the assignments and insights they need to develop. When they trust you, they will act on your advice. If that trust isn’t there, establishing a trusting relationship must be your top priority.

Creating a user-centered culture is important

Product and UX leaders must show their organizations why good user experience is important, and teach colleagues how to leverage the UX talent available to them.

To showcase the value of UX in a metric-driven organization, leaders should ensure that designers are trained on the business, included in conversations about metrics, and assigned to high-impact projects. Encourage designers to present their own work and ask questions. Use clear documentation to ensure that your UX team's performance is evaluated fairly.