​

Advocating for the user business

If you pay attention to UX design discourse online, you might think that our job is "advocating for users." Our job is to make money for the business, just like everyone else. We are best suited to doing that by understanding our users' needs and designing solutions to their problems that align with business goals. Advocating for users is important when it supports a business objective.

UX design education tends to focus a lot on understanding users. The missing part is understanding the business, its leaders and their goals, figuring out how we can support them in achieving their goals and communicating the value and impact of our work.

— From the article Why it seems like the sky is falling for digital design, and how to come out of the storm stronger​

Understanding your business

It’s not so much about understanding business theory in general. It’s about understanding how the business you work within functions.

Here are some questions tailored to help you better understand the business and make more informed design decisions. Some of them might not be suited to your particular business model; pick the ones that are relevant and talk to colleagues and analyse data to find the answers:

Customer and product understanding

Who are the company’s most valuable customer segments?
​Understanding who generates the most revenue or drives the most engagement will help you prioritise features and experiences that cater to those users. How you segment customers will depend on your company. At Kit (where I'm director of product design),​ it might be by subscriber count; in a previous role, it was company size, and before that, I worked in e-commerce, and it was monthly order volume.

What are the main user journeys that lead to a paid subscription? What percentage of free users convert to paid?
​This will help you understand what aspects of your product are most persuasive in getting free users to upgrade.

What are the features or usage patterns that correlate with retention?
​When looking at the accounts of users who have remained subscribed for a long period of time, look for commonalities in the features they use.

Market and competitors

What are the key differentiators between us and our competitors?​
Knowing what makes your product stand out can inform design decisions highlighting those unique attributes.

How do competitors' designs or features influence user expectations?​
If your users are migrating from a similar product, understand how user experience in competing products may affect the expectations users bring to yours.

Product lifecycle and metrics

What is the cost of acquiring a new customer (CAC) compared to the customer lifetime value (LTV)?
​Understanding this balance can help you determine where to invest design effort. When acquisition costs are well below lifetime value, onboarding and activation are typically higher leverage activities; in the reverse situation, retention becomes the focus.

What are the product’s key conversion rates?
​Understand which conversions are most critical to business health. Some examples include the conversion moment when the user's free trial runs out, a usage or seat-based conversion when the user reaches a limitation (think running out of Dropbox space), or it could be upgrading to a more expensive plan.

What features have the highest/lowest adoption rates?
​This will give you insights into what features add value to users and which might need refinement or better communication. You might want to break this down by free vs. paid users, plan type, or some other segment.

Business Strategy and Operations

What are the top business goals for the next quarter/year?
​Knowing the immediate business priorities can help you align your design efforts to what’s most impactful and become a strategic partner.

What percentage of revenue comes from existing vs. new customers?
​This can influence how you divide your time between improving retention and customer satisfaction or designing for new user acquisition; it can also help you think about which areas require experimentation because whatever you've done before isn't working versus refining and optimising a model that is working well and the company is reliant on.

What operational challenges or inefficiencies could design help solve?
​Understanding internal pain points can uncover opportunities where design can streamline processes or reduce costs. An example of this I have worked to improve via UX design in the past is a high volume of support tickets.

Storytime: Using business knowledge to affect design decisions

I worked at a company with 3 pricing plans, and the jump in price was significant between them ($49, $199 and $599 per month). When looking at the financial data for Expansion MRR (the revenue gained per month from accounts that increased their subscription amount), it was clear that this was a very low-leverage opportunity. Even doubling the current numbers—which would be extremely challenging—would hardly impact total revenue. Therefore, I was happy to design quick experiments but not to invest much time in research and polished designs.

On the other hand, retention rates were high, and most subscriptions occurred during the first 30 days, so the new user experience was a very high-leverage area. Thus, it was easier to advocate for increased investment in this area for research, design iterations, and validation.

Resources

• ​The Business of Design by Dave Huber is a great primer for communicating the value of design
• ​My course focuses on understanding the business environment and communicating value in ways that resonate with business leaders.
• The Business Model Canvas is a popular tool for mapping out how a business operates, which can help you understand where design fits into the broader strategy.
• Roger Martin's book The Design of Business explores how design can foster business innovation and drive strategic growth.

​

Did you get forwarded this email? Subscribe here. Do you think it would be helpful for a friend? Please consider forwarding it.

If you want to read more of my writing, follow me on LinkedIn.