If I can't measure it I can't (or struggle to) design it
TL;DR
I always aim to drive product design work with a tangible and clear objective from the very beginning.
Learning the hard way
Early in my career as a UI designer I was tasked with taking the insights from a user survey and exploring some design recommendations for a product I was working on in order to improve the overall user experience.
I excitedly saw a world of opportunity and took the initiative (or so I thought) to essentially re-design the entire journey, along with a brand new UI, flashy hover states and updated content. All of this was completely self directed without any user input or validation that these ideas would have any impact.
Somehow stakeholders were convinced they should buy into this new design and there began the long and expensive task of implementing these designs and essentially re-building the entire front end experience of the product.
Reflecting on this now I realise I had started this work with unclear goals and had not held myself accountable to specific measurable objectives. I had no understanding of the wider strategic goals of the product and why this design was particularly important. Instead I had taken this as an opportunity to have free reign on the product and re-design everything without a clear rationale. This no doubt cost the organisation unnecessary time and money developing a solution where it was unclear whether any of these new changes would have any material impact.
These days I’m always very focussed on ensuring there is a clear and tangible goal that the design work I am producing is attached to. It is difficult to strategise and plan without success measures in place. If I can’t tangibly measure the impact something is having, I struggle to design it in the first place.
I’m also now very wary of projects which come along that are solutions disguised as problems. For example I was working on an app where I was asked to ‘design a notification inbox’. However no one seemed very clear on what the objective of this was, how success would be measured by implementing it or even where it appeared on the product roadmap. Having clear goals reduces unnecessary waste in the design process and ensures I’m not designing something that isn’t tied to a strategic objective.
How I ensure work is driven by clear objectives:
When working with stakeholders I always advocate for starting with the problem to solve rather than the perceived solution.
I work closely with Product Managers to ensure the product objectives and success metrics are clear. The most successful relationships I’ve had is where I am actively inputting into those discussions and we are agreeing on the OKRs together.
Illustration source: popsy.co