We’ve worked with more than 10 clients in the last 18 months at ZeroToDesign. I’ve spoken to more than 100 founders in that time period as well, through a combination of sales calls, networking events, and online content.
The classic inbound we get is:
I have this product and I need someone to design ‘X’ for it
There is a formulated idea in their head, and they need someone to bring it to life. It’s a fairly transactional and execution-based interaction.
That’s normal for a service business. The client comes with a request, we highlight the service that’s needed, and then if everyone is happy, we start work and deliver something great.
But there’s a problem.
Price.
We have a range of service packages at Z2D, and they vary in price. This is because we know that our prospects are:
- Not cash-rich. Bootstrapped or pre-seed startups typically don’t have expansive capital deployment capabilities yet.
- Misinformed. They view their UX & Design needs as a cost. A cost they want to minimise because haven’t been told about its return.
Number 1 is not a problem we can solve. That’s one for the VCs and the founders themselves to figure out how to build up their reserves.
Number 2 is a problem we can solve. It’s not an easy problem by any means, because it’s been built up over time. I won’t get into how we’re in this situation too much, but I will get into why we’re in it and how we can get out of it.
Before we get started I want to make sure everyone that reads this understands how I define UX. This is a definition provided by the Interaction Design Foundation that I agree with:
That second particularly is important. It’s not just the experience once you get onto the product. It’s every touchpoint your users have, from start to finish.
Why UX is not seen as an ROI
I believe the main reason for this is due to a lack of direct articulation from the Product builders themselves (e.g. me).
The angle used by Designers, UX’ers and the like is often:
We should have good UX so users find the product easy/enjoyable and achieve their goals
That’s great. It’s a noble cause. One that I am heavily invested in and might lead me to sleep well at night because I made something nice and easy for other people.
But there’s a problem.
Numbers & metrics.
It’s hard to have an ROI without any numbers. Returns are how we determine if things are worth doing (e.g. investing in). We just frankly lack the numbers to make the argument for UX. And therein lies the problem.
UX & Design behaves in a subservient manner inside of companies, without metrics to push for a higher level, and therefore finds itself being under-invested and under-utilised. Ultimately, to the detriment of its users and the business it serves.
Worse, without a strong argument for it, it then gets seen as a cost to the business. Because if you’re not making money, then what are you doing? With all the layoffs happening and inflation affecting consumer demand, the parts of the business that aren’t generating revenue today are the first to be cut down.
We need to reframe UX.
We need to put our Sales hat on and read the room. There is a group of decision-makers that are determining our funding & future, and we’re responding back with subjective nice-to-haves.
It doesn’t work.
I know it doesn’t work because that’s exactly what I’ve tried to do for most of my career.
The best scenario is some slow and steady growth.
I want to strive for more.
Why UX is an ROI
Let’s get straight into this. There are 3 high-level metrics to measure the ROI of UX. There are granular ones within the 3, and we can get into those after. This is copied straight out of the slide deck I used for my talk at ETHGathering.
Onboard. Use. Retain.
That’s it. That’s the tweet.
Now, let’s break each of these down.
Onboard more customers
This is all about the early touchpoints. The advert that gets shown on the metro, the landing page they are linked to, and the SEO they’re shown.
It’s all about clear propositioning at this stage, you want to instil trust and have a clear benefit for them. Every change at this level has a huge impact, you’re working with the largest volume and this is the reason why A/B (split) testing is so common at this stage. It can help you determine which UX leads to more conversion on a page/step and ultimately more onboarding.
Make customers use it more
Once they’re in, this is where you the product has to be simple and easy to use. Here’s where we can measure things:
- % of journey completions
- Time to complete a journey
- Time since the last interaction on the platform
- Satisfaction score at the end of the journey
- Time spent on a single page
- Expansion of information sections (e.g. FAQs)
There are so many to get into, and it all depends on your specific product experience. The last one in the bullets above is useful when taking customers on a journey in-app, to see what they are looking for when trying to complete.
It should be a mix of quantitative and qualitative as well because you might know the what, but you won’t know the why.
Keep customers for longer
This is all about increasing retention and avoiding churn. The metrics in the section above should bring warning signs around churn. If those are low or dropping then the likelihood, whenever the renewal comes around, they might not hit Pay.
I’ve seen churn rates & retention focused on a lot by Customer Success (Account Management), but it shouldn’t be done just in isolation, as the metrics during usage will directly lead to a later path for retention vs. churn.
This is the start of my crusade to create more direct and to-the-point content when it comes to UX.
I want to highlight, educate and champion our role as UX Designers & Advocates to the rest of the business so that they truly can understand the power it has in driving satisfaction, growth and revenue.
UX can be understood to save costs and time, which is great, but business owners and founders love it more when you speak the language of making money more than saving money.
So we can do this:
And then, complete the loop:
This is the first in a multi-part series of articles covering UX as an ROI. The next article will dive deeper into the specific techniques in user experiences created by products that lead to the holy trinity.
Sakky B
Co-founder, ZeroToDesign
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