Do KPIs Limit Innovation for Product Designers?
Learn the 10 KPIs that every product designer should care about if they want to advance their career.
Hi friends!
Over the past week, I’ve been reflecting on how we, as product designers, balance creativity with the need to demonstrate the value and impact of UX within organizations. This got me thinking—does the way you approach metrics like KPIs and OKRs say something about your maturity as a designer? After considering it, I believe it does. And here’s why:
As a junior designer, you’re often tasked with completing immediate assignments, typically with much of the context already defined by others. Naturally, this focuses your perspective on the 'what' of your work. For example: What are you designing? What’s the deliverable? From this point of view, it might not seem necessary to think about KPIs or OKRs—or so you’d think, right? But I believe it’s important to consider these metrics, even as a junior designer, especially if you want to grow in your career. Here’s why:
As you grow into more senior or principal roles, your perspective shifts. Instead of just asking what, you start asking why and how. Why are you building this? How will it impact the end-to-end experience? And because of this shift, your relationship with KPIs evolves. You begin to see them as more than just measurements—they become strategic tools. They help you move beyond the 'what' and dive deeper into the 'why,' allowing you to connect your design decisions to long-term outcomes and organizational success.
This brings us to the question: Do KPIs limit innovation for product designers?
No, I don’t think so. In fact, I believe that understanding and integrating KPIs into your work can actually help you grow as a designer. When you know how to measure your impact, you don’t stifle creativity—you enhance it. You gain the ability to solve more complex problems, justify your design decisions, and communicate the value of UX in a way that resonates with stakeholders across the organization. Senior designers, for example, don’t just track metrics; they use them to guide long-term vision and ensure their designs have a lasting impact.
With all of this in mind, today I’d like to share 10 KPIs that every product designer should care about. I’ve broken them down into three key categories—User Experience and Usability, Conversion and Engagement, and User Feedback and Satisfaction—to help you focus on how each group impacts different aspects of your work. Let’s break each one down, explore why they matter, and how you can measure them effectively.
User Experience and Usability
User experience (UX) and usability metrics help you understand how effectively users can interact with your design. These KPIs focus on efficiency, ease of use, and error reduction, all of which are crucial for creating a seamless product experience. Let’s explore a few key KPIs in this category.
Task Success Rate (TSR)
What it is: Task Success Rate measures how effectively users can complete tasks while interacting with your product.
Why it’s important: TSR is a critical indicator of how intuitive and user-friendly your design is, directly reflecting how well your design helps users achieve their goals.
How to measure:
Track the number of users who attempt a task.
Categorize their success into tiers: complete success, success with minor issues, success with major issues, or failure.
Calculate the percentage of users in each category to get a clear picture of usability.
For more detailed guidance, I recently wrote this article and created a free to access spreadsheet that you can use to guide your next usability test. check it out here!
Time on Task
What it is: Time on Task measures how long users take to complete specific tasks within your product.
Why it’s important: It helps pinpoint where users may face delays or friction, giving insights into how efficient and smooth your design is.
How to measure:
Define the task: Clearly outline the task you want users to complete.
Set start and end points: Identify what actions mark the beginning and end of the task.
Use tracking tools: Screen recorders or analytics software like UXtweak can capture task completion times.
Analyze the data: Look for patterns, and consider excluding outliers such as pauses or interruptions.
Refine based on findings: Use these insights to adjust the task flow or design to optimize completion times.
For more detailed guidance, check out this article “Task completion time” by UXtweak.
User Error Rate
What it is: The User Error Rate tracks how often users make mistakes while completing tasks.
Why it’s important: A high error rate signals usability issues, making it easy to spot areas that need improvement.
How to measure:
Break down errors into categories, such as:
Slips: Unintentional actions (e.g., typos).
Mistakes: Wrong goals (e.g., entering incorrect data).
UI Problems: Errors caused by poor design.
Scenario Errors: Mistakes due to artificial test conditions.
Count the total number of errors users make during the task.
Divide that by the total number of task attempts.
Multiply by 100 to get the error rate percentage.
For more detailed guidance, check out this article “Measuring Errors in the User Experience” by Jeff Sauro’s
Navigation vs. Search
What it is: This KPI compares user preferences for using navigation menus versus search functionality to find content or complete tasks.
Why it’s important: It shows how users prefer to interact with your product, helping you identify whether navigation or search needs improvement.
How to measure:
Use usability testing tools like UsabilityHub, Hotjar, or Mouseflow to track user clicks and interactions.
Measure task completion rates for both navigation and search.
Divide successful completions by the total number of tasks to identify trends.
Analyze whether users rely more on search or navigation, offering insights into areas that may need improvement.
For more detailed guidance, check out this article “The 7 Most Important UX KPIs (and How to Measure Them)” by Emily Stevens.
User Feedback and Satisfaction
User feedback and satisfaction metrics provide direct insights into how users feel about your design. These KPIs are crucial for improving the overall user experience and building customer loyalty.
System Usability Scale (SUS)
What it is: SUS is a standardized questionnaire of 10 items rated on a 5-point scale, designed to assess the overall usability of your product.
Why it’s important: SUS provides a reliable benchmark for understanding how users perceive ease of use. It’s widely used across industries, making it great for comparison and tracking improvements over time.
How to measure:
Distribute a SUS survey with 10 statements rated from "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree."
Convert scores: subtract 1 from odd-numbered items and subtract even-numbered responses from 5.
Add up the scores and multiply by 2.5 for a final score out of 100.
A score above 68 indicates above-average usability, while anything over 85 shows excellent usability.
For more detailed guidance, check out this article “System Usability Scale for Data-Driven UX” by Mads Soegaard.
Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
What it is: A survey-based metric that measures user satisfaction with your product.
Why it’s important: It provides direct feedback on the user experience and highlights areas that may need improvement.
How to measure: Ask users to rate their satisfaction on a scale (typically 1 to 5 or 1 to 7). Calculate the percentage of users who provide positive ratings (4 or 5) out of the total responses to determine your CSAT.
For more detailed guidance, check out this article “What is CSAT and how do you measure it?” by Qualtrics.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
What it is: NPS is a metric that measures user loyalty by asking how likely they are to recommend your product to others.
Why it’s important: A high NPS reflects strong user satisfaction and loyalty, which can drive organic growth through word-of-mouth.
How to measure: Ask users to rate their likelihood of recommending your product on a scale from 0 to 10. Subtract the percentage of Detractors (those who rate 0-6) from the percentage of Promoters (those who rate 9-10) to calculate your NPS score.
For more detailed guidance, check out this article “The One Number You Need to Grow” by Frederick F. Reichheld, published on HBR.
Conversion and Engagement
This category focuses on how effectively your design drives user engagement and conversion actions, like purchases or sign-ups. These KPIs provide insights into how well your design supports business goals and user retention.
Conversion Rate
What it is: Conversion Rate measures the percentage of users who complete a desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a service.
Why it’s important: It’s a key indicator of how well your design turns visitors into active users or customers, helping you gauge the effectiveness of your product’s engagement and sales funnel.
How to measure: First, identify the specific conversion events you want to track (e.g., signing up, completing a purchase). Then, divide the number of users who complete the desired action by the total number of visitors, and multiply by 100 to get the conversion rate. You can also use A/B testing to compare conversion rates across different designs and see which version performs best.
For more detailed guidance, check out this article “What are Conversion Rates?” by the Interaction Design Foundation.
Bounce Rate
What it is: Bounce Rate measures the percentage of visitors who leave after viewing only one page.
Why it’s important: A high bounce rate can signal that users aren’t finding the content or experience engaging, which may need further investigation.
How to measure: Use analytics tools to track the percentage of visitors who leave after a single interaction. Compare bounce rates across different pages or user segments to identify problem areas and opportunities for improvement.
For more detailed guidance, check out this article “Bounce rate: what it is and how to improve it” by Hotjar.
Page Views
What it is: Page Views measure the total number of times a page is viewed or reloaded by users.
Why it’s important: High page views, combined with other engagement metrics, can indicate strong interest in your content or design.
How to measure: Use analytics tools to track views. Pair this data with metrics like scroll depth, time on page, and user interactions to understand overall engagement.
For more detailed guidance, check out this article “ What are Page Views?” by Agency Analytics.
Wrapping It All Up
As we’ve explored, KPIs are not just metrics to track—they’re strategic tools that can help you grow as a designer and elevate the impact of your work. By integrating KPIs into your process, you don’t limit creativity, you empower it. Understanding the relationship between design and measurable outcomes allows you to justify your decisions, solve more complex problems, and align your designs with long-term business goals.
Now, you might be wondering if these KPIs are UX-specific—and the truth is, they’re not. Part of your growth as a designer involves realizing that marketing teams, product managers, and other stakeholders might also be using these same metrics to guide their decisions. This highlights an important point: none of these KPIs or metrics should be viewed in isolation. Instead, think of them as adjustable levers—like the knobs on a telescope—that help you sharpen your focus and get a clearer picture of the overall product landscape. The key is learning how to balance and interpret these metrics together to make informed, strategic decisions.
Whether you’re focusing on usability, engagement, or user satisfaction, each of the KPIs we’ve discussed offers a window into how your design is performing and where it can improve. As you continue to refine your approach, remember that embracing these metrics—especially as you transition into more senior roles—can be a game-changer in driving success for both your team and your users.
What do you think about the role of KPIs in product design? Do they help or hinder creativity in your experience? I’d love to hear your thoughts or any experiences you've had—feel free to share in the comments!
Sending this to my designer friends
You are so productive, Cristian! Thanks for writing this. Some of my thoughts on this topic:
1. There are no fixed rules for metrics. They vary case by case, and it's all about choosing the ones that make the most sense for the specific scenario.
2. Metrics are often just part of the puzzle. They don't explain everything, which is why qualitative data (user interview insights, etc) can be a valuable complement. Actually, even with qualitative data, human intuition is still necessary and critical to make sense of things.
3. A single metric is rarely enough. We usually need a set of metrics, with one or two primary ones and a few others as guardrails.
4. An important yet challenging aspect of UX metrics is articulating them to stakeholders. Designers often need to spend significant time finding alignment to ensure the chosen metrics make sense and tie to what stakeholders truly care about.
5. One key benefit of using metrics is that they help guide intentional design decisions.