Why you should hire UX Designers (from a business perspective)

My recent move from London to Zurich made me realise that there are fewer UX Designers per company in Switzerland than in the UK. That discovery made me reflect on the reasons behind the existence of UX, and how it can contribute to businesses.

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

McKinsey examined the business value of design. Their team collected over 2 million pieces of financial data and 100 thousand design actions over 5 years. They defined the McKinsey Design Index, which rates companies by how strong they are at design and how that links up with the financial performance of each company. Here is what they say:

“Companies with top-quartile McKinsey Design Index scores outperformed industry-benchmark growth by as much as two to one.”

McKinsey, like many others, correlates the investment in design with the growth/revenue of your company. So how can a UX Designer add value to businesses?

1. Achieve your business goals

UX is not just about aesthetics. Design in Tech Report 2017 states that:

“Design isn’t just about beauty; it’s about market relevance and meaningful results.”

UX Designers do much more than producing beautiful layouts. They analyse the end-to-end journey of your customers interacting with your product, find opportunities, and develop concepts to achieve your business goals. Design methods, such as design thinking, can lead to improving your business metrics. Involving designers at an early stage of your product can help you jump ahead of the competition.

In her book UX Strategy, Jaime Levy focuses on the intersection of business strategy and UX Design, exploring the methods to improve your metrics. Out of the 4 Tenets of UX Strategy, listed below, only one focuses on actual design:
1. Business Strategy
2. Value Innovation
3. Validated User Research
4. Killer UX Design