User experience (UX) teams are facing unprecedented challenges. Economic uncertainty is at an all-time high, with budgets being squeezed harder than ever. Businesses must justify every penny spent and are much more likely to invest in initiatives demonstrating a clear return on investment (ROI). This has historically been a problem for UX projects, which struggle with visibility across the wider business as results are often intangible and take time to deliver.
Therefore, demonstrating the return on investment (ROI) of UX is a strategic priority for UX teams and businesses that want to deliver excellent experiences for their clients or customers. Clearly defined and measurable results are crucial for convincing stakeholders of the need for, and value of UX. A cohesive strategy for implementation and an understanding of the challenges when quantifying UX results are also essential.
Let’s talk strategy
So what’s the best way to measure ROI for UX? Start by understanding the benefits of UX – these include higher conversion rates, increased customer satisfaction, and reduced returns or other forms of ‘churn’ for your business. Tying these benefits to real business outcomes is probably the best way to show UX’s value. It’s all about aligning the work your UX team is doing with the business KPIs, whether these are task completion rates, revenue growth or any other metric.
For better or for worse, there are no set rules when it comes to identifying which metrics are the most critical to evaluating ROI. It depends entirely on the business’ individual goals and overarching KPIs. Whether these are driving revenue, cutting costs, or boosting customer retention, the fundamental goal is to understand those key priorities and then show how UX work supports them. Linking UX to business performance in this way makes it much easier to justify any resources spent on UX and even petition for greater investment in future.
Once you have identified these goals, then you can plan for success by assigning metrics to them, and effectively integrating them into your broader KPIs. This is especially useful in cases where tracking metrics like usability test success rates reveal intangible benefits like time and cost savings by avoiding rework. Once you’ve identified the right metrics, you’ll gain a clearer understanding of the tangible results driven by your UX enhancements, especially in operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness, two areas that can be challenging to pinpoint in the bottom line.
Demonstrating the value of UX
The most effective method of demonstrating the value UX can bring to a business is storytelling. Spreadsheets and numbers are an important way to communicate information, but this is rarely as compelling as coupling it with a clear, relatable narrative. Building a narrative between the metrics being measured and the work done by your UX team is a great way to make your findings relatable, understandable and above all relevant to stakeholders in the language of the business, not just design.
A reliable narrative structure is to focus on a specific user journey or problem that will resonate with your stakeholder audience; whether it’s a customer abandoning their cart, or a potential customer looking for information on the company website, these can all be related to those KPIs. For example, one of our clients used a narrative supporting business objectives of increased conversation and reduced return rates to highlight how their UX team’s work boosted purchase confidence and provided a seamless shopping experience for users.
The next step in the narrative will then highlight the UX team’s impact by showing how UX research, design, and testing led to a positive outcome. The hard data underpinning the narrative then acts as a proof point to bolster your argument in the face of any challenges.
This narrative can then act as a throughline in developing conversations around ongoing support for UX within the business. In a cost-conscious environment, UX teams can shore up support during challenging periods by continuously building the narrative. By evolving to include feedback and adapting to changing circumstances, this offers a more compelling case for continued support.
How to cope with challenges
The process of translating the value UX brings into language that business stakeholders can understand is arguably the biggest challenge when making a case for UX. Many C-suite decision-makers still view UX as an added extra rather than a core part of their business, and a key driver of success and customer satisfaction.
Designers can similarly become alienated from wider business concerns and may not know the best way to counter internal resistance to design decisions. Bridging the gap between these two groups by sharing a broader understanding of business objectives is crucial to achieving the optimum outcome for both designers and stakeholders.
Not all businesses have the necessary tools to measure UX metrics accurately or to manage complex data. Exploring simple yet effective data-gathering techniques like user research and customer feedback pathways, or leveraging existing data can be helpful in these situations if budgets will not stretch to additional resources.
Food for thought
In challenging times, many businesses see cutting UX budgets as an easy way to free up resources from a ‘nice-to-have’ but ultimately unnecessary part of the business. It’s up to designers to show business leaders that, rather than the cherry on top, UX is the whole cake.
UX ROI can help businesses identify areas for improvement and make informed decisions on how best to serve their customers. This helps businesses retain a competitive edge in trying times, and mitigate risks posed by decreased customer satisfaction and lost revenue.
This article is written by Jason Giles, VP, Product Design at UserTesting.