What Is The Business Value Of Design?

When launching a new product, the design phase can feel overwhelming. With so many things to consider, like customer preferences and market trends, it’s easy to feel lost. How do you create a product that stands out from the competition?  Understanding the business value of design will help you answer that question. This article will help you understand the role of design in the product design process to help you create better products.

NUMI designs, develops, and engineers products to help you create better products. Our focus on product design enables you to maximize the business value of design to ensure your project’s success. 

How Do We Define Design?

At its core, design is a structured approach to solving problems. The design process can take many forms. A design could be:

• An architectural blueprint
• A user-friendly airport signage system
• A well-crafted brochure
• A comfortable chair
• An optimized production workflow on the factory floor

In every case, design aims to create solutions that are both effective and appealing.

Design Is About More Than Just Looks

Design isn’t just about making things visually attractive. Its goal is to solve real problems to enhance usability and satisfaction. As McKinsey’s report, The Business Value of Design, reveals, investing in design isn’t just an artistic endeavor; it’s an intelligent business strategy. 

The research shows that companies prioritizing design thinking outperform those that don’t, often seeing double the success. This reinforces the idea that well-executed design directly contributes to a company’s competitive edge. 

Demonstrating the Tangible Value of Design

One of the main challenges is demonstrating the tangible value of design. Many designers and forward-thinking companies understand the high return on investment that great design can deliver—but proving this ROI to stakeholders—whether consumers, executives, or clients—can be demanding. 

The Evolving Role of Design in Business

Quantifying the value of a good user experience or a streamlined process is not always straightforward, and the design’s impact may sometimes go unrecognized. As more organizations adopt design thinking, they see its power to improve products and drive meaningful business results, creating a compelling case for embracing design as a core component of their strategy.

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What Is the Business Value of Design?

Design Drives Business Performance and ROI

The financial impact of design is significant. According to the Design Management Institute, design-driven companies outperformed the S&P Index by 219% between 2004 and 2014. Forbes also reports that every dollar invested in user experience design can yield a $100 return, highlighting the strong correlation between design investment and revenue generation. 

The Tangible Benefits of Design Investment

Small manufacturers experienced an average sales increase of 17.5% after improving goods and services through design enhancements. For organizations focused on profitability, the British Columbia Premier’s Technology Council found that nearly half of the projects with additional design investment recovered total costs within a year of market launch, with 90% achieving payback within three years.

Design Enhances Customer Loyalty and Market Share 

Customer loyalty is a key advantage of design-led practices. Adobe found that 50% of design-led companies report higher customer loyalty as a direct benefit. These companies often foster emotional connections with customers, a defining feature for 46% of design leaders, who view this bond as central to advanced design practice. 

This focus on customer connection and creativity also translates into market share—companies with a strong design ethos enjoy a market share 1.5 times greater than their competitors. 

Design Improves the Workplace and Drives Employee Retention 

The benefits of design extend internally, enhancing work environments and positively influencing employee retention. Organizations prioritizing creativity and innovation are often recognized as “best places to work,” reflecting the impact of a design-friendly culture. 

For example, 71% of organizations using design thinking report improved team culture, and companies that incorporate industrial designers into their teams show a 9.1% higher employment growth rate than those that do not. 

Design and Profitability 

Design-thinking organizations are more profitable, with 82% of companies acknowledging a direct link between creativity and business success. This profitability is further evidenced by the Design Management Institute’s finding that design-driven companies outperformed the S&P Index by 219% over a decade. 

The tangible returns of integrating design thinking into business strategy are compelling, as demonstrated by Rae, founder of Motiv Strategies, whose Design Value Index has proven that companies using design thinking can outpace competitors by up to 228%. 

Streamlining the Innovation Process with Design 

Design can make the innovation process more efficient. Nearly 70% of design-led companies believe design thinking enhances innovation efficiency, creating an agile framework for developing new products and services. 

Conversely, companies that don’t embed design in their digital customer experience (CX) strategies often lag, with nearly half reporting that their CX lags behind competitors. Design also influences cost efficiency, as up to 95% of production costs are locked in at the design stage. Optimized industrial design can reduce costs through improved manufacturing processes and faster time to market. 

NUMI: Your Design Partner for Startup Success

NUMI is a framer web design agency that powers world-class framer developers and product designers. Backed by Y Combinator, NUMI handles your startup's sourcing, vetting, and hiring design needs. We have a fabulous design team that ensures that all of your design work is being done well. 

• NUMI helps with:
• Product design
• Web design
• Framer development
• Webflow development
• Mobile design
• Prototyping
• UX design
• All of your startup's design needs

Subscribe to a guild of world-class designers ready to join your team. Schedule a call with us today to learn more.

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How To Increase the Business Value of Design

Align Design with Business Goals and ROI Expectations

Businesses primarily seek tangible outcomes from their investments, including in design. Designers can contribute meaningfully to the company’s bottom line by aligning design objectives with specific business needs. 

Value-Based Design: Beyond Aesthetics

Rather than focusing solely on visual appeal, value-based design emphasizes how design decisions impact revenue, customer retention, and operational efficiency. For example, a user experience (UX) redesign may be framed as improving customer satisfaction, reducing customer support costs, or increasing conversion rates. 

Understanding these goals ensures design efforts produce a return on investment (ROI) that resonates with stakeholders.

Develop Business-Oriented Design Thinking

Designers who blend their creative expertise with business acumen can deliver more impactful results. This involves thinking strategically about where design can add value within the broader company context, whether through:

• Enhancing the customer experience
• Streamlining product development
• Supporting brand differentiation 

Donning a “business-oriented thinking cap,” designers can proactively identify opportunities to integrate design with marketing, sales, and product goals, allowing their work to become a driver of business strategy rather than an isolated function.

Prioritize Customer Problem Diagnosis

Designing with purpose requires an in-depth understanding of customer pain points and needs. Accurately diagnosing these issues before proposing solutions ensures that design efforts truly respond to customer expectations. 

This diagnostic approach fosters trust and credibility and allows designers to craft experiences that deliver meaningful customer improvements. For example, addressing friction points in a digital product can:

• Enhance user satisfaction
• Reduce churn
• Drive up revenue

Establish a Consistent, Value-Oriented Design Process

A structured, repeatable design process helps increase the predictability and consistency of design outcomes, making the design function more reliable in the eyes of business stakeholders. 

A well-defined process may include the following stages, each focused on aligning with business goals:

• User research
• Concept development
• Prototyping
• Testing

This consistency helps design teams build a reputation for dependable, high-quality output, strengthening their strategic role within the company.

Communicate the Strategic Value of Design

To increase the perceived value of design, designers must effectively communicate how their work contributes to business objectives. This could involve demonstrating how a design change improved customer engagement:

• Sharing metrics on how user-centered design reduced support costs
• Explaining how design enhancements drove sales

Regularly sharing these results with stakeholders fosters a better understanding of design’s role in business success and promotes design as a valuable asset.

Invest in Skill Development for Designers

For design to become a strategic advantage, designers may need additional training in business strategy, data analysis, and communication skills. This investment in skill development enables designers to understand and speak to the business impact of their work. 

Though it requires time and effort, this combination of design and business skills enhances the design team's influence, making it an integral part of company strategy.

The Role That Designers Play in a Business Success

At the core of design is user experience. Designers are the guardians of the user experience, leveraging their expertise to refine and innovate continually. With a sophisticated understanding of human-centered design, they focus on:

• Making abstract ideas concrete
• Translating innovative concepts into products and services that users find:some text
  • Intuitive
  • Functional
  • Enjoyable

This skill enables them to take the creative ideas within a company and ground them in practical solutions that genuinely address users’ needs. For example, a business may believe that launching a mobile app is essential to its growth. 

The Designer's Role in Problem-Solving

A skilled designer, though, will probe further to determine the root problem the app seeks to solve and whether it is indeed the best solution or if another approach might be more effective. This diagnostic ability ensures that solutions are thoughtfully aligned with real-world problems, enhancing their relevance and usability.  

Collaborative Problem Solvers

Modern design does not occur in a vacuum. Instead, it’s deeply collaborative. Designers now work with developers, business strategists, and end users, forming interdisciplinary teams that can address challenges from multiple angles. 

Collaborative Design and the Power of Tools

Tools like Figma have facilitated this shift, enabling real-time collaboration and shared input across roles. In this context, designers become partners in problem-solving rather than merely service providers, helping align the business, technical, and user perspectives for a holistic solution.  

Value-Driven Design: Diagnosing Before Delivering

A value-driven approach to design emphasizes understanding the client’s or user’s core problem before suggesting solutions. Designers are adept at asking critical questions and empathizing with users, ensuring that the proposed solutions address real needs rather than superficial ones. 

The Value of User-Centric Design

This diagnostic ability is crucial in today’s design landscape; designers understand that their work only has value if it genuinely resonates with the user and effectively solves their issues. This approach reduces wasted resources and improves the likelihood that the final product will be well-received.  

Combining Hard and Soft Skills

With essential soft skills, designers blend hard skills like:

• Visual design
• UX/UI design
• Wireframing
• Prototyping
• User research

The Cornerstones of Effective Design

Empathy is at the heart of effective design, enabling designers to understand and address user pain points truly. Communication and collaboration are also key, allowing designers to work seamlessly within multidisciplinary teams and integrate feedback constructively. 

Flexibility and the ability to detach from personal investment in a particular solution are equally important, helping designers adapt as new insights emerge.  

Designers As Problem Solvers And Storytellers

Above all, designers are storytellers and problem solvers. They weave together function and form, creating narratives that engage users and help them see the value in a product or service. This storytelling ability enables designers to connect emotionally with users, building loyalty and fostering trust. 

When designers can illustrate the journey from problem to solution through their work, they enhance the product and contribute significantly to the brand’s identity and market differentiation.

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Subscribe To a Guild of World-Class Framer Developers with Our Framer Web Design Agency Today

Design is both an art and a science. It’s about more than just making things look pretty. Design impacts how products function. It helps get users to their goals quickly and seamlessly. Good design can help a business save money by reducing costly mistakes and delays. 

Startups, in particular, benefit immensely from effective design. Since they operate on tight budgets and time constraints, good product design can help them quickly attract users and investors to achieve profitability or build sufficient funding to continue operations. 

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