4 ways to incorporate business thinking in design
How to truly have a seat at the table as a designer
User-centric design has become a familiar buzzword in the industry, referring to the approach that places the customer at the centre of every decision you make. It’s incredibly important when building product and keeps teams aligned on their true purpose. But I believe focusing on users without also considering the broader business can actually limit your ability to make good design decisions.
At Xero, product designers aim to work in a triad structure, where they collaborate with both product and engineering teams. It means there’s shared ownership between all three areas, so decisions are desirable, feasible and align to the business objectives. Rather than a ‘design brief’ that promotes design as a service, designers can actively participate in product decision making.
But it wasn’t until I moved from UX design to product design that I really understood the importance of this model, and started taking on board those different perspectives during the design process. I remember the day it really hit me. I was working at another company, presenting a product showcase to the CEO. I wasn’t quite sure how to do it the right way, but my product manager gave me a valuable tip. “You only have 5 minutes,” he said. “So make sure you include the measurements.”
I pulled together a story that flowed from the customer problem to the hypothesis and the improvements we made in the product, and finally the measurements. That’s when the CEO sat up and became more engaged. I noticed a similar pattern when other teams presented their updates. It really gave me an insight into the importance of incorporating business thinking in design, and the need to correlate all design activities to business values.
Doing this not only only makes design more relatable to the business, it also elevates our work relationship from consultant to product partner. And that’s when, as a product designer, we can truly collaborate on equal terms with our colleagues in product and engineering, and deliver the best outcome for the customer.
How I embraced business thinking in design
Learning how to embrace business thinking required some learning on my part, but here are a few things that made a difference for me.
1. Know the business
At the beginning of my product design career, I focused only on customer problems and design solutions. Although that approach was very much expected and appreciated by stakeholders, I didn’t have a seat at the table when core decisions were made. As a result, unexpected trade-offs in the design would occasionally happen for reasons that I didn’t understand, until the product was already in the delivery phase.
Looking back, I now realise that the way I was approaching design (without connecting design outcomes to business goals) wasn’t fostering the right conditions for me to be involved in the decision-making process. In fact, my single-minded focus on design outcomes had separated me from other functions, probably because I supported the perception that I didn’t need to be involved in anything outside the design remit.
When I realised what was happening, I began to put more effort into understanding the objectives, strategies and priorities of the business, as well as how my team played a part in achieving the broader business vision. This, in turn, helped me see how my work was relevant to the business (Figure 3) — not just at a high level, but on a day-to-day basis during the design process.
For example, if the product strategy was to achieve business goals by making incremental improvements to the product and extending it to more customers, then I could make sure my design solution was scalable. As I began to design and frame my solutions to support the business focus, my contribution began to be noticed and I gradually became more involved in conversations where important product decisions were made.
2. Know the numbers
Knowing the business is just the foundation of business thinking. To truly collaborate with teams and bring them along on the design journey, I knew I also had to tell a good story. And that meant investing time in knowing the numbers. Knowing what data to look at and how to use it accurately wasn’t a skill that I had fully developed at that time. In fact, the only time I’d ever worked with an analytics expert was during a page revamp when I was a web designer.
I guess I always thought that the data team should be taking care of the numbers, since they were responsible for them. But this mindset didn’t get me very far. While qualitative data can inform us of users’ perceived value, it’s usually insufficient to build a strong case for a design approach. Worse, when the conversation at work shifted to data analysis, I wasn’t able to contribute because I didn’t even understand the terminology they used.
I remember when my team was analysing the mean and median usage rates of a page, I couldn’t contribute at all because I didn’t understand the nuances between both values and their implications on the analysis. It just felt really complex and intimidating. But I wanted to be part of the conversation, so I reached out to the data team for help. I expressed an interest in taking a data-driven approach and they gave me access to the analytics.
That was when I started to familiarise myself with running queries in Redash, and learning fundamental metrics such as average page views, average view time, and abandonment rates. When I arrived at Xero, I ramped up my learning in this space. I’m fortunate to now have a dedicated data analyst in my team, who is always supporting us by providing relevant data for decision making. These days, I even feel confident suggesting what data we may want to look at to help us make decisions.
Backing up my design decisions with numbers makes negotiating so much easier. It’s a tangible thing that stakeholders can look at to see the measurable impact of my designs.
For example, when I proposed removing a button that our research showed was confusing to customers (Figure 4), I incorporated the page traffic and its conversion rate to reinforce the impact that it would bring to the business.
Communicating using a tool that product stakeholders are familiar with also means I spend less time explaining what impact design can bring to the table. What I’ve learned is that you don’t have to be a data expert to know the data, but you must at least spend time working with a data expert to grasp how data works from different dimensions. So make friends with your data analysts, as well as the numbers.
3. Know the success metrics
Some people believe that success metrics are always relative to business goals, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. If the change in the product is small and won’t immediately impact the business, alternative measurements are needed. For example, if the business goal is to increase the conversion rate, but our solution is one of many factors that influences the customers’ decision to buy, then only measuring conversation might not tell us anything about the success of our solution.
In this situation, alternative measures like the amount of time customers take to check out, or the abandonment rate, need to be considered. One thing’s for sure, we need to work with the product team to define these together. It’s not just the product manager’s responsibility to formulate and measure success.
Knowing how to develop success metrics has not only helped me contribute to business goals, but it’s also trained me to think more purposefully and strategically as a designer. I now have a shared language that I can use to collaborate with product partners when addressing the impact of design on our customers.
For example, saying ‘doing X can reduce cognitive load in our customers during checkout and increase ARPU’, rather than focusing purely on the customer experience.
Oh and pro tip: try to start this conversation early (as soon as you have a hypothesis in mind) even if the solution hasn’t been crystallised yet, because this helps build clarity on ways to approach the design.
4. Know the people you work with
Before you can truly align design outcomes to the broader business strategy, you need to connect with the people you work with. This isn’t just about knowing what they did on the weekend, or whether they prefer butter or margarine (although catching up with the team is an important part of maintaining wellbeing, especially during COVID-19!) but really understanding their motivations, concerns, challenges and work goals. If you can go beyond that to understand their behaviours, ways of working, openness to feedback and propensity to change, even better.
I used to walk into meetings armed with a bunch of user research, hoping to get buy-in from the team on my ideas. But my eagerness to prove myself as a designer only blinded me to their needs. The reality is, without empathy and appreciation for everyone across product and engineering, I wasn’t able to build a connection that helped us collaborate as one team. These days, I spend time with my team and get to know them enough to find common goals and work out how we can best work together. The flow of empathy eventually became reciprocal and I now find them taking an interest in the design process and reasoning for the design decisions we recommend. This makes collaboration easier all around.
I also take the time to self reflect after having difficult conversations. It’s natural to want to avoid conflict, but if we think about difficult conversations as an opportunity to get to know someone better, it doesn’t seem as scary. I try to assume best intentions and foster open and honest conversations with everyone in the team, so I can find the intersection where all of our best interests meet. When you focus on that intersection or comfort zone, I’ve found people naturally want to have those conversations (even if they are difficult).
Change will not come if we wait for others to do it
As the world continues to change, the way we design products needs to evolve as well. I believe it’s no longer enough to focus on design outcomes if we want to truly take a customer-centric approach. We need to be part of the conversations where decisions are made, and that means we need to know the business, know the numbers, know the success metrics and know the people we work with, so we are better equipped for business thinking.
Since incorporating these into my design practice, I’ve managed to achieve the ‘triad’ model where I am an equal partner of product and engineering. Yes, it was uncomfortable in the beginning, but the more I adopted the business language, the easier it became to collaborate. The more I correlated design to business values, the less effort it took to explain the value of design. Over time, a greater sense of trust was established and there was always a seat at the table for design.
Ultimately, embracing business thinking in design can help us care more about our customers, by allowing us to advocate for the needs of our users when decisions are made. Of course, I’m still very much learning as I go, so I would love to hear how you balance user-centric design with measurable impact. Let me know in the comments.
