Why UX Outcomes Make Better Goals Than Business Outcomes

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Increase subscription retention by 15% this quarter.

Increase new policy subscriptions by 20% this year.

These are common business outcomes, results the organization’s leadership wants to attain to keep the organization growing. Every business needs results like these to survive.

It’s a great day when the design team’s leadership can report they’ve played a major role in attaining these outcomes. It’s the holy grail of proving the value of user experience design. “We made these changes in the design and we saw a 15% increase in renewals of existing policyholders”. But should we, as designers, see this as our goal?

Business outcomes make great results, but not great goals

The mistake we see design leaders make is they turn these business outcomes into goals. Let’s figure out how we can change the design to increase renewals. When the leadership focuses their teams on these goals, it can (often unintentionally) make the user’s experiences worse.

People naturally take the easiest path to attain a goal. Often, the easiest path to attaining a business outcome is to focus on the direct levers of that outcome.