Pay attention to the company’s Business Goals — Designers & Researchers!
By: Pashang Engineer
Tags: UX Research, UX Design, Ux Strategy, Ux Management, Business

Business Analytics, Business metrics are all mumbo-jumbo for Junior Designers just starting off in the UX field. We all know the company’s politics and management sometimes disrupt the goals you had in mind, i.e keep the user’s needs in mind. We fail to understand their stand of view and the management refuses to listen to ours. It doesn’t help that the management side in a company dictates a lot of what the company’s goals should be. Get X amount of users this month and then the next month and then the next month after that.

Frustated Designer

Balance is key!

Designers are not taught business metrics. It’s rare that a junior designer has the business acumen to interact with the management team and his product manager. Alright! So we don’t understand business metrics but we have been taught or rather know how to emphasize with our users so why can’t we do that with the management’s goals. A company has to run and they are in a business, not in a charity. The key is to balance your user’s needs and your company’s business goals! Extend your hand to the management of your company or your product managers, tell them your user’s needs and talk to them in a way they understand you’re being serious about their business goals. A usability assessment report is important for a UX Designer or Researcher but these days UX Designers are also asked to keep close attention to social media marketing & digital marketing analytics and present their findings based on that. Why do you think we do A/B testing so often in a company!?

Remember a very important fact when you were getting hired. While Hiring managers are looking at your UX Design/Research skills, they were looking at how you would fit with their business goals, and if you would help them grow.

Know your business metrics

Hypothetically, let’s say Product Managers in a company might not know what metrics you use for your user research before you start designing your product. However, they do know their business metrics and it’s important that a UX Designer use metrics like sales KPI, cost of customer acquisition, customer loyalty, etc. to supplement their usability assessment report. Since companies are working in an agile environment, everyone is working towards a common goal and that common goal should be understood by everyone in the company which is to help their company & business grow. Below is an example of how UX Designers could merge their company’s business goals and Product goals.

Finally, what’s the verdict?

Arming yourselves with this knowledge can only help us UX Designers & UX Researchers from not being relevant in your company. If you also see closely, UX Design & UX Research roles are constantly changing in requirements and that’s because sometimes product managers or owners don’t usually understand what a UX Designer does and what their contributions are. The only way to show your value is to show how your designs and research have contributed to your company’s business goals in terms of metrics they understand and can show to their investors.