Business: Value of User Experience

The field of UX design is vast and expansive. It impacts every organization in the world. No business remains untouched by modern design sensibilities. As Adam Judge has said, “The alternative to good design is bad design. There is no such thing as no design.”

But what is the worth of good design to an organization? Do UX designers add value to businesses in tangible and intangible ways? Yes! Studies suggest that the ROI of UX design could be as high as 9,900%! Furthermore, according to McKinsey, companies that score in the top quartile of the McKinsey Design Index outperform industry benchmark growth by 2:1. Read More

To stay relevant and avoid disruption through advances in technology or globalization, more and more organizations have embraced user-centered design and UX research methods. Thus, after years of fighting for a seat at the decision-making table, it is becoming more common for UX professionals to find one there. Still, executives often ask UX teams to quantify the value and return on investment (ROI) of their UX efforts. While calculating the ROI of User Experience can be challenging for consumer products and services, it can be truly daunting in enterprise organizations.

This series of articles will describe our journey of discovery in learning how to measure the ROI of User Experience at a large, Fortune-500 company that develops human capital management software and services.

The company had made the decision to invest in several innovation centers throughout the US. Observing the adoption of User Experience in other large enterprises such as IBM, General Electric, Capital One, Honeywell, Philips, and JPL, they came to believe that user-centered design was an essential component of the innovation equation. Therefore, they established our UX team just over three years ago. Read More

User Experience is about solving problems in real people’s lives and helping people to attain their goals. UX professionals deal with users’ painpoints, investigate how to eliminate them, and design solutions for them.

Users, customers, agencies, and companies should be aware of the many important benefits of a user-centered approach to design. These benefits actually materialize only once people have used a product or service. They can extend broadly to other people and communities. The tools that people choose to use can impact many others. Thus, it is very important that experience outcomes engender positive feedback. Often, company slogans say, “We want to change the world,” but the products they create don’t reflect that idealism. The work UX professionals do and the value we contribute can help our companies to attain that goal. Read More