Insights
How to Stop UX From Being the First Team Cut
The Product, UX, and Engineering industries are in flux. You already know this. Between economic chaos, political instability, and AI upending everything we thought we understood about our work, teams are losing headcount while the workload doubles.
Executives are making brutal cuts, boards are demanding profitability, and UX is seen as a nice-to-have or worse, as the team slowing the products down.
Why? Because most UX leaders still can't connect their work to the metrics CEOs and boards actually care about. While we're locked in virtual conference rooms debating design systems and user journey maps, executives are staring at revenue projections, retention curves, and operational efficiency. The gap between what we measure and what matters to the people signing checks is the reason half your team got laid off last quarter.
UX is struggling because we keep insisting it's valuable without proving it in the language of the business: dollars, growth, and competitive advantage. It's time UX (design and research) leaders fight for their seat at the table. To make companies stand up and take notice that their work is not only essential to success, but they can prove it with data and results.
Connecting UX Work to Business Outcomes
UX people like structure, and so with that in mind, I will turn this into a 4-step framework that you can follow to start seeing results.
Step One: Identify the Business Metrics that Matter
I'm aware that the answer here depends on who you ask in your organization, but if your company is structured correctly, they should have yearly OKRs and goals…
I can hear the stifled sighs already.
So maybe those goals are nothing more than we need to make more money and to keep the board happy. You need to work with what is put in front of you. Let's start looking at the metrics you can impact.
Revenue Metrics: Conversion Rate, Avg Order Value, Revenue Per User
Retention Metrics: Churn Rate, Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV), Repeat Purchase Rate
Efficiency Metrics: Support Tickets, Time to Task Completion, Operational Costs
Growth Metrics: Activation rates, Feature Adoption, Referral Rates
What You Do Right Now
Schedule 30 minutes with your CFO or finance lead. Walk in and ask: "What are the top 3-5 metrics you report to the board?" Write them down. Then map every UX initiative on your roadmap to at least one of those metrics. If you can't map it, kill the initiative or redesign it until you can.
When they ask why you need this information, and they will, tell them the truth: UX wants to stop being a cost center and start being a revenue driver. Back it up with Nielsen Norman Group data showing 75% average improvement in KPIs after UX redesigns. Tell them research proves a direct connection between UX metrics and business outcomes. Don't ask permission. Don't wait for someone to invite you. Get the data because your job could depend on it down the line.
Step Two: Build the Connection Model
Stop assuming executives understand how your work impacts their numbers. They don't. They're not stupid; they're busy, and you've never made them stop and take notice before. Make it so obvious that they can explain it to the board themselves.
What You Do Right Now
Create a “metrics cascade” that shows: UX Input → UX Metric → Business Outcome
Build a table like this for every major initiative:
UX Initiative | UX Metric | Business Metric | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
Checkout flow redesign | Task completion rate +22% | Conversion rate +8% | +$2.4M annual revenue |
Onboarding optimization | Time to first value -40% | Activation rate +15% | 12K more active users |
Design system implementation | Design/dev time -30% | Release velocity +25% | 4 additional releases/year |
Error reduction in forms | Error rate -60% | Support tickets -25% | $180K saved annually |
Don't leave it up to them to connect the dots. For every UX project in your roadmap, create a one-page "impact brief" that includes: the business problem, the UX solution, the metrics you'll track, and the projected business value. Share it before you start work, not after. Make them see the ROI before you touch Figma.
Step Three: Establish Baseline Measurement
This is where UX teams have the most roadblocks. Not because measuring baselines is hard, but because the baselines don't exist. Too many companies run on gut checks and vibes. If revenue is up, nobody asks questions. If it's down, everyone panics and starts blaming others for not predicting the future.
Each organization is different, so I can't tell you the best way to find these or even establish them. What I can tell you is you need these three things to move forward with confidence. Don't leave these vague either:
Current state of key metrics (before UX intervention)
Cost of the problem (in time, money, or opportunity)
Stakeholder alignment on success criteria
Get sign-off. Make it official. Put it in writing. Otherwise, when your work succeeds, someone else will take credit. When it fails, you'll take the blame.
What You Do Right Now
Use this formula for every project: "Currently, [metric] is at [number], costing us [business impact]. By improving [UX element], we project [new number], generating [business value].”
Example: “Currently, our checkout abandonment is 68%, costing us $1.2M monthly in lost revenue. By reducing friction in our payment flow, we project 55% abandonment, recovering $234K monthly.”
Get everyone (product, engineering, finance, leadership, etc) to agree on those baseline numbers before you move on. Include timelines, but be sure not to overpromise. If you say three months and it takes six, you've just lost your credibility.
Step Four: Report in Business Language
I admit that this is the one area I am not good at, but I'm getting better as I keep going. I always thought that using a bunch of 'big business speak' was just a way for people to try to sound smarter than everyone else. Stop talking like a designer. Start talking like someone who understands how a business operates.
Examples:
Instead of: “We improved task success rate by 18%”
Say: “We increased conversion by 8%, driving $2.4M in incremental annual revenue”
Instead of: “We launched a new design system”
Say: “We cut design-to-development time by 30%, enabling 4 additional product releases this year and $400K in operational savings”
What You Do Right Now
Create a "business translation" document that maps every UX metric you track to its business equivalent. Share it with product and finance partners and review it quarterly. Update it when priorities shift. This document is your Rosetta Stone, letting you speak both languages fluently.
Real-World Playbook
Some of you may be saying, "This all sounds right, but it's not my job to figure this out."
Give me a minute to stop laughing… okay, I'm good.
It's thoughts like that that keep people afraid of losing their jobs. Stop waiting for permission to show initiative and start taking control of your own narrative. Even if you are the newest designer on the team, document your own impact. Keep track of it for your future resume and case studies, to really show your impact at review time, and, at the very least, to measure yourself and see if you are improving your craft. If you're a manager or director, this is your survival strategy.
For UX Designers:
Audit your last three projects: identify which business metrics they impacted
Add a "Business Impact" section to all future project briefs
Schedule monthly "metric reviews" with product managers
For UX Managers:
Restructure team OKRs to mirror company OKRs (if the company measures revenue growth, UX should too)
Create a "UX Business Dashboard" showing real-time impact
Institute pre-mortems: before projects start, define what business success looks like
For UX Directors/VPs:
Embed UX in quarterly business reviews with the executive team
Build relationships with the CFO/finance to understand cost structures
Create case studies that tie every major UX initiative to board-level metrics
Institute "impact retrospectives" after launches to capture and communicate wins
Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
This is harder than it sounds. It takes resilience to chase down data that nobody bothered to track. It takes courage to discover your "gut check" was wrong. It takes discipline to keep measuring when you're drowning in deadlines. Here are a few pitfalls that yours truly has fallen into and what they taught me:
Pitfall 1:
Measuring Too Many Things Focus on 3-5 core metrics that matter to executives, not 20 UX vanity metrics nobody cares about.
Pitfall 2:
Attribution Challenges Be transparent: "UX contributed to" is better than overclaiming sole credit. Partner with product and engineering in reporting wins
Pitfall 3:
Short-Term Thinking Balance quick wins (conversion optimization) with long-term investments (design systems, research infrastructure).
Pitfall 4:
Ignoring Qualitative Context Numbers tell what happened; user research tells why. Use both to build compelling narratives.
The Shift UX Must Make
UX can't survive as "user advocates" anymore. We have to be business partners who advocate through design. The organizations winning right now aren't asking "Is this good UX?" They're asking, "Does this UX drive the outcomes we need?" When you can answer that question with data, metrics, and business impact, you don't have to fight for a seat at the table. You're already there. And when the next round of layoffs comes, you'll have a stack of data showing exactly why firing you would cost the company millions.
Build the case. Speak their language. Prove your value.
More to Discover
Insights
How to Stop UX From Being the First Team Cut
The Product, UX, and Engineering industries are in flux. You already know this. Between economic chaos, political instability, and AI upending everything we thought we understood about our work, teams are losing headcount while the workload doubles.
Executives are making brutal cuts, boards are demanding profitability, and UX is seen as a nice-to-have or worse, as the team slowing the products down.
Why? Because most UX leaders still can't connect their work to the metrics CEOs and boards actually care about. While we're locked in virtual conference rooms debating design systems and user journey maps, executives are staring at revenue projections, retention curves, and operational efficiency. The gap between what we measure and what matters to the people signing checks is the reason half your team got laid off last quarter.
UX is struggling because we keep insisting it's valuable without proving it in the language of the business: dollars, growth, and competitive advantage. It's time UX (design and research) leaders fight for their seat at the table. To make companies stand up and take notice that their work is not only essential to success, but they can prove it with data and results.
Connecting UX Work to Business Outcomes
UX people like structure, and so with that in mind, I will turn this into a 4-step framework that you can follow to start seeing results.
Step One: Identify the Business Metrics that Matter
I'm aware that the answer here depends on who you ask in your organization, but if your company is structured correctly, they should have yearly OKRs and goals…
I can hear the stifled sighs already.
So maybe those goals are nothing more than we need to make more money and to keep the board happy. You need to work with what is put in front of you. Let's start looking at the metrics you can impact.
Revenue Metrics: Conversion Rate, Avg Order Value, Revenue Per User
Retention Metrics: Churn Rate, Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV), Repeat Purchase Rate
Efficiency Metrics: Support Tickets, Time to Task Completion, Operational Costs
Growth Metrics: Activation rates, Feature Adoption, Referral Rates
What You Do Right Now
Schedule 30 minutes with your CFO or finance lead. Walk in and ask: "What are the top 3-5 metrics you report to the board?" Write them down. Then map every UX initiative on your roadmap to at least one of those metrics. If you can't map it, kill the initiative or redesign it until you can.
When they ask why you need this information, and they will, tell them the truth: UX wants to stop being a cost center and start being a revenue driver. Back it up with Nielsen Norman Group data showing 75% average improvement in KPIs after UX redesigns. Tell them research proves a direct connection between UX metrics and business outcomes. Don't ask permission. Don't wait for someone to invite you. Get the data because your job could depend on it down the line.
Step Two: Build the Connection Model
Stop assuming executives understand how your work impacts their numbers. They don't. They're not stupid; they're busy, and you've never made them stop and take notice before. Make it so obvious that they can explain it to the board themselves.
What You Do Right Now
Create a “metrics cascade” that shows: UX Input → UX Metric → Business Outcome
Build a table like this for every major initiative:
UX Initiative | UX Metric | Business Metric | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
Checkout flow redesign | Task completion rate +22% | Conversion rate +8% | +$2.4M annual revenue |
Onboarding optimization | Time to first value -40% | Activation rate +15% | 12K more active users |
Design system implementation | Design/dev time -30% | Release velocity +25% | 4 additional releases/year |
Error reduction in forms | Error rate -60% | Support tickets -25% | $180K saved annually |
Don't leave it up to them to connect the dots. For every UX project in your roadmap, create a one-page "impact brief" that includes: the business problem, the UX solution, the metrics you'll track, and the projected business value. Share it before you start work, not after. Make them see the ROI before you touch Figma.
Step Three: Establish Baseline Measurement
This is where UX teams have the most roadblocks. Not because measuring baselines is hard, but because the baselines don't exist. Too many companies run on gut checks and vibes. If revenue is up, nobody asks questions. If it's down, everyone panics and starts blaming others for not predicting the future.
Each organization is different, so I can't tell you the best way to find these or even establish them. What I can tell you is you need these three things to move forward with confidence. Don't leave these vague either:
Current state of key metrics (before UX intervention)
Cost of the problem (in time, money, or opportunity)
Stakeholder alignment on success criteria
Get sign-off. Make it official. Put it in writing. Otherwise, when your work succeeds, someone else will take credit. When it fails, you'll take the blame.
What You Do Right Now
Use this formula for every project: "Currently, [metric] is at [number], costing us [business impact]. By improving [UX element], we project [new number], generating [business value].”
Example: “Currently, our checkout abandonment is 68%, costing us $1.2M monthly in lost revenue. By reducing friction in our payment flow, we project 55% abandonment, recovering $234K monthly.”
Get everyone (product, engineering, finance, leadership, etc) to agree on those baseline numbers before you move on. Include timelines, but be sure not to overpromise. If you say three months and it takes six, you've just lost your credibility.
Step Four: Report in Business Language
I admit that this is the one area I am not good at, but I'm getting better as I keep going. I always thought that using a bunch of 'big business speak' was just a way for people to try to sound smarter than everyone else. Stop talking like a designer. Start talking like someone who understands how a business operates.
Examples:
Instead of: “We improved task success rate by 18%”
Say: “We increased conversion by 8%, driving $2.4M in incremental annual revenue”
Instead of: “We launched a new design system”
Say: “We cut design-to-development time by 30%, enabling 4 additional product releases this year and $400K in operational savings”
What You Do Right Now
Create a "business translation" document that maps every UX metric you track to its business equivalent. Share it with product and finance partners and review it quarterly. Update it when priorities shift. This document is your Rosetta Stone, letting you speak both languages fluently.
Real-World Playbook
Some of you may be saying, "This all sounds right, but it's not my job to figure this out."
Give me a minute to stop laughing… okay, I'm good.
It's thoughts like that that keep people afraid of losing their jobs. Stop waiting for permission to show initiative and start taking control of your own narrative. Even if you are the newest designer on the team, document your own impact. Keep track of it for your future resume and case studies, to really show your impact at review time, and, at the very least, to measure yourself and see if you are improving your craft. If you're a manager or director, this is your survival strategy.
For UX Designers:
Audit your last three projects: identify which business metrics they impacted
Add a "Business Impact" section to all future project briefs
Schedule monthly "metric reviews" with product managers
For UX Managers:
Restructure team OKRs to mirror company OKRs (if the company measures revenue growth, UX should too)
Create a "UX Business Dashboard" showing real-time impact
Institute pre-mortems: before projects start, define what business success looks like
For UX Directors/VPs:
Embed UX in quarterly business reviews with the executive team
Build relationships with the CFO/finance to understand cost structures
Create case studies that tie every major UX initiative to board-level metrics
Institute "impact retrospectives" after launches to capture and communicate wins
Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
This is harder than it sounds. It takes resilience to chase down data that nobody bothered to track. It takes courage to discover your "gut check" was wrong. It takes discipline to keep measuring when you're drowning in deadlines. Here are a few pitfalls that yours truly has fallen into and what they taught me:
Pitfall 1:
Measuring Too Many Things Focus on 3-5 core metrics that matter to executives, not 20 UX vanity metrics nobody cares about.
Pitfall 2:
Attribution Challenges Be transparent: "UX contributed to" is better than overclaiming sole credit. Partner with product and engineering in reporting wins
Pitfall 3:
Short-Term Thinking Balance quick wins (conversion optimization) with long-term investments (design systems, research infrastructure).
Pitfall 4:
Ignoring Qualitative Context Numbers tell what happened; user research tells why. Use both to build compelling narratives.
The Shift UX Must Make
UX can't survive as "user advocates" anymore. We have to be business partners who advocate through design. The organizations winning right now aren't asking "Is this good UX?" They're asking, "Does this UX drive the outcomes we need?" When you can answer that question with data, metrics, and business impact, you don't have to fight for a seat at the table. You're already there. And when the next round of layoffs comes, you'll have a stack of data showing exactly why firing you would cost the company millions.
Build the case. Speak their language. Prove your value.
More to Discover
Insights
How to Stop UX From Being the First Team Cut
The Product, UX, and Engineering industries are in flux. You already know this. Between economic chaos, political instability, and AI upending everything we thought we understood about our work, teams are losing headcount while the workload doubles.
Executives are making brutal cuts, boards are demanding profitability, and UX is seen as a nice-to-have or worse, as the team slowing the products down.
Why? Because most UX leaders still can't connect their work to the metrics CEOs and boards actually care about. While we're locked in virtual conference rooms debating design systems and user journey maps, executives are staring at revenue projections, retention curves, and operational efficiency. The gap between what we measure and what matters to the people signing checks is the reason half your team got laid off last quarter.
UX is struggling because we keep insisting it's valuable without proving it in the language of the business: dollars, growth, and competitive advantage. It's time UX (design and research) leaders fight for their seat at the table. To make companies stand up and take notice that their work is not only essential to success, but they can prove it with data and results.
Connecting UX Work to Business Outcomes
UX people like structure, and so with that in mind, I will turn this into a 4-step framework that you can follow to start seeing results.
Step One: Identify the Business Metrics that Matter
I'm aware that the answer here depends on who you ask in your organization, but if your company is structured correctly, they should have yearly OKRs and goals…
I can hear the stifled sighs already.
So maybe those goals are nothing more than we need to make more money and to keep the board happy. You need to work with what is put in front of you. Let's start looking at the metrics you can impact.
Revenue Metrics: Conversion Rate, Avg Order Value, Revenue Per User
Retention Metrics: Churn Rate, Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV), Repeat Purchase Rate
Efficiency Metrics: Support Tickets, Time to Task Completion, Operational Costs
Growth Metrics: Activation rates, Feature Adoption, Referral Rates
What You Do Right Now
Schedule 30 minutes with your CFO or finance lead. Walk in and ask: "What are the top 3-5 metrics you report to the board?" Write them down. Then map every UX initiative on your roadmap to at least one of those metrics. If you can't map it, kill the initiative or redesign it until you can.
When they ask why you need this information, and they will, tell them the truth: UX wants to stop being a cost center and start being a revenue driver. Back it up with Nielsen Norman Group data showing 75% average improvement in KPIs after UX redesigns. Tell them research proves a direct connection between UX metrics and business outcomes. Don't ask permission. Don't wait for someone to invite you. Get the data because your job could depend on it down the line.
Step Two: Build the Connection Model
Stop assuming executives understand how your work impacts their numbers. They don't. They're not stupid; they're busy, and you've never made them stop and take notice before. Make it so obvious that they can explain it to the board themselves.
What You Do Right Now
Create a “metrics cascade” that shows: UX Input → UX Metric → Business Outcome
Build a table like this for every major initiative:
UX Initiative | UX Metric | Business Metric | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
Checkout flow redesign | Task completion rate +22% | Conversion rate +8% | +$2.4M annual revenue |
Onboarding optimization | Time to first value -40% | Activation rate +15% | 12K more active users |
Design system implementation | Design/dev time -30% | Release velocity +25% | 4 additional releases/year |
Error reduction in forms | Error rate -60% | Support tickets -25% | $180K saved annually |
Don't leave it up to them to connect the dots. For every UX project in your roadmap, create a one-page "impact brief" that includes: the business problem, the UX solution, the metrics you'll track, and the projected business value. Share it before you start work, not after. Make them see the ROI before you touch Figma.
Step Three: Establish Baseline Measurement
This is where UX teams have the most roadblocks. Not because measuring baselines is hard, but because the baselines don't exist. Too many companies run on gut checks and vibes. If revenue is up, nobody asks questions. If it's down, everyone panics and starts blaming others for not predicting the future.
Each organization is different, so I can't tell you the best way to find these or even establish them. What I can tell you is you need these three things to move forward with confidence. Don't leave these vague either:
Current state of key metrics (before UX intervention)
Cost of the problem (in time, money, or opportunity)
Stakeholder alignment on success criteria
Get sign-off. Make it official. Put it in writing. Otherwise, when your work succeeds, someone else will take credit. When it fails, you'll take the blame.
What You Do Right Now
Use this formula for every project: "Currently, [metric] is at [number], costing us [business impact]. By improving [UX element], we project [new number], generating [business value].”
Example: “Currently, our checkout abandonment is 68%, costing us $1.2M monthly in lost revenue. By reducing friction in our payment flow, we project 55% abandonment, recovering $234K monthly.”
Get everyone (product, engineering, finance, leadership, etc) to agree on those baseline numbers before you move on. Include timelines, but be sure not to overpromise. If you say three months and it takes six, you've just lost your credibility.
Step Four: Report in Business Language
I admit that this is the one area I am not good at, but I'm getting better as I keep going. I always thought that using a bunch of 'big business speak' was just a way for people to try to sound smarter than everyone else. Stop talking like a designer. Start talking like someone who understands how a business operates.
Examples:
Instead of: “We improved task success rate by 18%”
Say: “We increased conversion by 8%, driving $2.4M in incremental annual revenue”
Instead of: “We launched a new design system”
Say: “We cut design-to-development time by 30%, enabling 4 additional product releases this year and $400K in operational savings”
What You Do Right Now
Create a "business translation" document that maps every UX metric you track to its business equivalent. Share it with product and finance partners and review it quarterly. Update it when priorities shift. This document is your Rosetta Stone, letting you speak both languages fluently.
Real-World Playbook
Some of you may be saying, "This all sounds right, but it's not my job to figure this out."
Give me a minute to stop laughing… okay, I'm good.
It's thoughts like that that keep people afraid of losing their jobs. Stop waiting for permission to show initiative and start taking control of your own narrative. Even if you are the newest designer on the team, document your own impact. Keep track of it for your future resume and case studies, to really show your impact at review time, and, at the very least, to measure yourself and see if you are improving your craft. If you're a manager or director, this is your survival strategy.
For UX Designers:
Audit your last three projects: identify which business metrics they impacted
Add a "Business Impact" section to all future project briefs
Schedule monthly "metric reviews" with product managers
For UX Managers:
Restructure team OKRs to mirror company OKRs (if the company measures revenue growth, UX should too)
Create a "UX Business Dashboard" showing real-time impact
Institute pre-mortems: before projects start, define what business success looks like
For UX Directors/VPs:
Embed UX in quarterly business reviews with the executive team
Build relationships with the CFO/finance to understand cost structures
Create case studies that tie every major UX initiative to board-level metrics
Institute "impact retrospectives" after launches to capture and communicate wins
Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
This is harder than it sounds. It takes resilience to chase down data that nobody bothered to track. It takes courage to discover your "gut check" was wrong. It takes discipline to keep measuring when you're drowning in deadlines. Here are a few pitfalls that yours truly has fallen into and what they taught me:
Pitfall 1:
Measuring Too Many Things Focus on 3-5 core metrics that matter to executives, not 20 UX vanity metrics nobody cares about.
Pitfall 2:
Attribution Challenges Be transparent: "UX contributed to" is better than overclaiming sole credit. Partner with product and engineering in reporting wins
Pitfall 3:
Short-Term Thinking Balance quick wins (conversion optimization) with long-term investments (design systems, research infrastructure).
Pitfall 4:
Ignoring Qualitative Context Numbers tell what happened; user research tells why. Use both to build compelling narratives.
The Shift UX Must Make
UX can't survive as "user advocates" anymore. We have to be business partners who advocate through design. The organizations winning right now aren't asking "Is this good UX?" They're asking, "Does this UX drive the outcomes we need?" When you can answer that question with data, metrics, and business impact, you don't have to fight for a seat at the table. You're already there. And when the next round of layoffs comes, you'll have a stack of data showing exactly why firing you would cost the company millions.
Build the case. Speak their language. Prove your value.