Lately, I’ve been brainstorming ways to move beyond aesthetics and prove design’s business value.
I understand typography, iconography and colour theory. I know how to build beautiful, functional interfaces, and I’ve been in the industry long enough to have built cool stuff.
Okay, last year, I attended a hangout for designers.
Just a small get-together for individuals in the creative industry. Have a few drinks, talk about your accomplishments, network with people. Stuff like that.
There was a section of the hangout where key speakers would speak on their experience and give tips on how to grow as a designer irrespective of the design industry you’re in.
Ernest, one of the speakers, mentioned something profound.
He said: “the need to learn how design drives business impact.”
That was my key takeaway from the hangout.
I left pondering what that meant and how I could apply it to my craft.
Fast forward 2 weeks later, when my friends and I started building our Design Collective.
I went back to understand deeply: “the need to learn how design drives business impact.”
Because somehow, somewhere, it’d be crucial in the success of our collective.
I opened Claude AI.
Cuz what’s the best way to brainstorm ideas fast if not AI.
My prompt was essentially one question: “I know component libraries and design systems are crucial to design but what can I do beyond that to drive business impact, provide value to users and measure it”.
Claude gave me a response (which I had to filter through, of course 😏)
The response had these key points:
→ Product Strategy and Vision
→ Business Model Design
→ User research and insights
For brevity I will talk about product strategy only (other points may be covered in subsequent posts, so stay tuned).
The product strategy solution followed a 4-week framework I could use for every design/tool I would build:
→ Week 1: Define Success
- What’s your goal for the flow/design/application?
- Pick 2-3 metrics to track
- Write your hypothesis: “This tool should save me X time”
→ Week 2: Measure Reality
Track for 5 days: Watch yourself use the tool in real work scenarios. Write down every frustration immediately
→ Week 3: Find the Bottleneck
Map your workflow, the actual steps you take to achieve your goal.
Where do people drop off most?
That’s your constraint.
→ Week 4: Fix ONE Thing
- Pick the biggest constraint
- Design one targeted solution
- Predict the outcome
- Build it, measure for another week
Simple right 🙂?
I chose to test the framework on a tool I built earlier: a device simulator, Mobily Responsive.
See, I had built this device simulator for website responsiveness testing.
Has iPhone and iPad options.
But I only ever test iPhone 15 Pro.
30% device coverage when the business goal was 100%.
What would most people do? Add more devices.
What did I do instead? I measured WHY.
I tracked my behaviour for 5 days.
The issue wasn’t missing devices.
It was friction.
Switching between devices meant:
→ Click dropdown
→ Scroll through list
→ Select device
→ Wait for reload
→ Repeat 2-3 times
So, I redesigned how I switched between them. The solution? Preset workflows that load entire testing environments with one click. Here’s what I built:
→ “Quick Mobile” Workflow → Just iPhone 15 Pro
→ “Full Mobile” Workflow→ 3 phone sizes
→ “Everything” Workflow→ Phones + iPad
Why this works:
I removed the micro-decisions that created friction. One click loads your entire testing environment, meaning no mental overhead, no excuses to skip devices.
What I’m Doing Next:
Taking this exact framework to client work.
When they ask for a redesign, I’ll say: “Let’s first measure how people use what you have. Find where they drop off. Then design the intervention.”
Data first. Design second.
Now, I want you to try this:
Pick one tool you use daily.
Track your behavior for 5 days.
Find where YOU drop off.
Fix that one constraint.
You’ll learn more about product strategy in one week than reading 10 books.
Then bring that thinking to your team. Watch what happens.
Questions? Want to talk design strategy? Hit me up on X @mich_thedev
Till next time.
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