Measuring design impact
Align research and design with business value
KPIs to prove the value of your design team's research and insight
Ensure your design team drives business metrics with these KPIs
KPI | Positive or negative outcomes or consequences | Discovery questions to drive discussion with business partners |
Site Registration Conversion Rate | Increase number of account registrations for the site | How do you measure the success of your efforts around site registrations? What are your current goals? How are you doing currently when considering those goals? Are you working on any initiatives to make progress on improving your site conversion rate? |
Retail Conversion rate | Increase profits. | What initiatives do you have ongoing that impact your conversion funnel? How are you discovering and tracking pain points in your conversion funnel? What are your goals around improving conversion? What does your conversion funnel look like? How has it changed, if at all, over the last year? |
Average deal size | Lower than expected/needed revenue. | What does your conversion funnel look like? What are the key attributes that exemplify your largest deals? What are your goals to increase the average deal size? What would the impact be on your business of increasing the average deal size? |
Market share | Loss of market share to competitors, Improve market share. | How do you currently track and measure the performance of your product/service in the industry? What goals do you have to move the needle? Are you working on any projects or initiatives to address negative movement in market share? |
Profit Margin | Improve profit margins. | How are you currently tracking profitability? Which parts of the business own pricing strategy and product research? What initiatives or projects do you have ongoing to address pricing/profitability? What would the impact be to your business if you could increase the profitability of the products/services that are currently in the market? |
Revenue target | Missed revenue goals. | How do you plan to measure success when feature/function is released? What are the typical metrics that you use to determine when a launch has been successful? |
Renewal rate | Reduced churn. Increase in ARR/APOR. | What is the typical customer journey? How do healthy customers look different from ones who end up not renewing? What changes are you looking to drive? What are the team goals related to renewal? What differences do you see between customer segments? |
Average revenue per customer | Increase in profit | What is known about how customers order now? What potential cross-sell opportunities exist? How does average revenue per customer differ across segments? How does the cost of customer support impact revenue per customer? |
Non-recurring revenue | Increase in profit. | What products or services are you accountable for that are purchased just once? What drives conversion? Are there customer segments that are a high priority for the team? |
Annual recurring revenue | Increase in profit. | What products or services are purchased/renewed on an annual basis? What drives loyalty or adoption? What drives the conversion upfront? Are there customer segments that are a high priority for the team? |
Emotional connection score (ECS) | Improvement in brand loyalty, increase in conversion. | What are the key drivers of emotion for your brand, products, and services? How are you measuring them? What is the impact of customer connection on conversion or other key business goals? |
Customer acquisition cost (CAC) | Lose money on net new deals. | What does your customer acquisition funnel look like? How do you track and measure the cost of acquisition? At what points in the funnel do you experience the most significant drop-off? What efforts do you have underway to remove barriers or pain points from the funnel? What is the average cost of acquisition for your key target segments? |
Cart abandonment rate | Increase conversion | How does your cart factor into your conversion funnel? How do you measure your conversion funnel? How do you understand what pain points exist across the funnel? What are your goals around improving upon your cart abandonment rate? What would the impact be on your business of reducing the rate of cart abandonment? |
Page Views | Increased engagement | What does "normal" look like with regard to page views for key pages in the experience? Is there known seasonality? What goals do you have around driving people to specific pages? |
Clicks | Increased engagement | What does "normal" look like with regard to clicks on critical calls to action? What goals do you have to drive engagement with critical site elements? |
Drop-off rate | Increase conversion. | What does the conversion funnel look like? What are the rates of drop-off at each step? What is known about the barriers within the process? |
Form abandonment rate | Increase conversion. | How does the form fit into offline or operational processes? What friction - intentional or accidental - do people encounter during the process that includes the form? What are the consequences for people if forms are not completed or completed incorrectly? |
Bounce rate | Too many people leaving site without achieving intended goal. | What initiatives are you working on to address your bounce rate? What looks normal to you? What are your goals? How do you track and measure the pain paints that impact your bounce rate? |
Customer support
KPI | Positive or negative outcomes or consequences | Discovery questions to drive discussion with business partners |
Customer-support tickets | Reduce the number of tickets filed and the costs of customer support. | How do you currently support customers? What channels do you use? What is your approximate cost per call/chat/ticket? What goals do you have to reduce the number of tickets? |
Average resolution time | Reduced support costs. | How do you currently support customers? What channels do you use? What is your approximate cost per ticket? What goals do you have to reduce the amount of time required for resolution? What have you done to understand the root causes of tickets? What would the impact be to the business of a reduction in time to resolution? |
Open tickets | Reduced support costs. | How do you currently support customers? What channels do you use? What is your approximate cost per ticket? What goals do you have to reduce the amount of time required for resolution? What have you done to understand the root causes of tickets? What would the impact be to the business of a reduction in time to resolution? |
Average reply time | Reduced support costs. | What is the current average reply time? How do you currently support customers? What channels do you use? What is your approximate cost per ticket? What goals do you have to reduce the amount of time required for resolution? What have you done to understand the root causes of tickets? What would the impact be to the business of a reduction in time to resolution? |
Average first response time | Reduced support costs. | What is the current average reply time for your first responses? How do you currently support customers? What channels do you use? What is your approximate cost per ticket? What goals do you have to minimize the number of touches required for resolution? What have you done to understand the root causes of tickets? What would the impact be to the business of a reduction in the number of follow-up contacts? |
First resolution rate | Reduced support costs | How do you currently support customers? What channels do you use? What is your approximate cost per ticket? What goals do you have to minimize the number of touches required for resolution? What have you done to understand the root causes of tickets? What would the impact be to the business of a reduction in the number of follow-up contacts? |
KPI | Positive or negative outcomes or consequences | Discovery questions to drive discussion with business partners |
Productivity on UX research team | Ensure UX researchers can focus on high-value and -risk work. | How many research projects do researchers work on currently? Are they working on the projects they should be? What would the impact be of having researchers focus on more strategic research? What role do designers and PMs play in your current research efforts? |
Cost per study | Cost per study. | How much time does it take from kickoff to delivery on insights now? Who manages that process? What challenges do you have with the current process? Are you getting all of the insights you're looking to uncover currently? What would the impact on the business be if you were able to improve the speed to insights? |
Number of customers spoken to | Create better product market fit, reduce rework. | What strategies does the business use to connect with customers? What are the ways that we collect feedback about the operation? What initiatives are on the horizon that require insight into the needs and goals of customers? How do executives listen to customers? What role - if any - do insights play in decision-making by individual contributors? |
Number of actionable insights collected | Create better product market fit, reduce rework. | How does the business tell the story around the return on investment of doing customer research? What strategies does the business use to connect customer feedback to initiatives and projects? |
UX testing coverage | Ensure the customer voice is included in every critical decision. | How are you currently measuring the experience? What aspects of your products/services are you testing? What, if any, goals do you have around gathering insights from customers? |
Speed to insights | Free up time for other projects by reducing rework. Support a culture of insights. | How much time does it take from kickoff to delivery on insights now? Who manages that process? What challenges do you have with the current process? Are you getting all of the insights you're looking to uncover currently? What would the impact on the business be if you were able to improve the speed to insights? |
Usability
KPI | Positive or negative outcomes or consequences | Discovery questions to drive discussion with business partners |
Time on task | Increase conversion. | What are the current thresholds that you observe in your behavioral analytics that align with higher probability to convert? What goals have been set around time on task for critical parts of the experience or conversion funnel? What, if any, industry or company benchmarks do you measure against? |
Task Success | Reduced revenue, increased failover rates to higher-touch customer support channels | What business metrics are connected to your key flows? What are your current goals around improving task success? What, if any, strategies are you using to benchmark task success over time? |
Error Rate | Increased revenue. Increased engagement. | What business metrics are connected to your key flows? What are your current goals around reducing error rates? What, if any, strategies are you using to benchmark error rates over time? |
Test Level Satisfaction | Increased revenue. Increased engagement. | What are your current goals for participant perception of your core experiences? What does that look like across brands? Across channels? Competitively? |
Task Level Satisfaction | Increased revenue. Increased engagement. | What are your current goals for participant perception of your core experiences? What does that look like across brands? Across channels? Competitively? |
Count of usage of optimal path | Improvement in task success, improvement in critical business/financial indicators. | How does optimal path usage impact conversion? What are your goals around right-pathing users? |
Number/Severity of Usability Problems | Improvement in task success, improvement in critical business/financial indicators. | What known usability problems are you aware of? How do those problems impact the core conversion/adoption/engagement metrics you are tracking? How does your team prioritize addressing usability problems? What evidence is required to make the business case to prioritize addressing usability issues? |
Task difficulty | Improvement in task success, improvement in critical business/financial indicators. | What are your current goals for participant perception of your core experiences? What does that look like across brands? Across channels? Competitively? |
KPI | Positive or negative outcomes or consequences | Discovery questions to drive discussion with business partners |
Product adoption | Not achieving revenue goals. Time and money spent on rework to fix problems. | How do you measure product adoption? What areas of opportunity do you see in improving adoption? What is the impact of not achieving your goals around adoption? What is your ideal state for adoption? |
Total addressable market (TAM) | Expand Total Addressable Market | How do you currently collect insights about customers when you are evaluating market opportunity? What goals do you have around increasing the TAM? Which audiences do you currently have access to? Which audiences do you need to have access to? Tell me more about how the org is thinking about expanding the market? |
Time to market | Accelerate Time to Market | How long does it typically take for you to get new features/functions on the market? How are product managers measured with regard to new features/functions launch? What would the impact be to your business if you could get the right product to market in less time? |
Time to Adoption | Reduce the time to first account creation and usage | What are your benchmarks around adoption? What role does adaptation play in your understanding of the success of features/functions in the market? What would the impact be to your business if you could reduce the average time to adoption of new product releases? |
Launch failure | Failed product/initiative launches | Tell me more about the last time your team worked on a project that took longer than expected or went over budget. What projects has your team worked on recently that required extensive rework? How much time would you estimate your team spends on rework or tuning new features/functions versus building them? |
Maintenance cost | Reduced support costs. Reduced rework. | What are the costs related to supporting the site? What projects are underway to streamline costs and/or maintenance? What initiatives are related to ensuring efficiency and productivity around site content and operations? |
KPI | Positive or negative outcomes or consequences | Discovery questions to drive discussion with business partners |
Net Promoter Score (NPS) | Improve brand perception. Drive customer loyalty and spend. | How do you track perceptions of the brand experience? What goals do you have around impacting NPS? Have you seen recent changes to NPS? What parts of your experience are currently measured using NPS? What projects or initiatives do you have currently underway that would impact NPS? |
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) | Improvements in customer loyalty, increases in spend, cost reductions. | How do you track perceptions of the brand experience? What projects do you have underway that are focused on changing how customers interact with or perceive the brand? What parts of your experience are measured using NPS? |
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