Measure What Matters: Elevate Your Design with Key UX Metrics

This week has been massive for me. I had to travel interstate—and everyone who knows me personally is well aware of how much I hate traveling and detest packing and unpacking. And I had to do it multiple times this week.

I also took up a position in a new place. For someone who hates traveling, I still love seeing new places and meeting new people. Weird, right?

All in all, this week has been a fun roller coaster. Although I had to deal with a massive increase in my expenses, which I wasn’t prepared for, every other experience made up for it, and I took it as a wonderful blessing.

It's past midnight here, and I almost didn’t publish this edition—I was thinking, "Oh, it’s late already." But if there’s anything I know, it’s that it’s better late than never, and there’s no way I’m disappointing you guys. So here we are!

As I mentioned in the last edition of the newsletter, where I talked about increasing your impact in your company as a designer regardless of your level, I’m now following up with practical steps to help you measure UX metrics for your product.

Having a stellar portfolio as a designer will open doors for you, so I’ll also be giving you tips to turn your portfolio from stale to stellar. Haha!

I want this article to be short and sweet, so let’s get to it without further ado.

One thing you must always remember about great UX is that it’s data-driven. Most designers fail to grasp that there’s a lot at stake when designing real products. It’s not just one of your case study projects, which you can simply infer and assume about.

Most times, there’s money at stake—in other words, the company itself is at stake. Keeping this in mind will help you deliberate better on every design decision you make.

Here are a number of key metrics you can consider and track when designing or seeking to improve a product:

• Time to Value: How long does it take the user to find value in your product? To reach the point where they say, "Aha!" upon completing a task or achieving a goal? Your goal as a designer is to make the expected time as short as possible and ensure that the actual time does not exceed 1.5x the expected time in extreme cases. You can calculate this by dividing the sum of the time spent by all your users by the total number of users. The worst cases of bad UX involve complex or time-consuming processes. People want to get things done fast—time is money, and your product could become a leaky funnel.

You can gather this data during user testing or from analytics software. If your company isn’t using analytics software, you might want to convince a decision-maker of its importance or raise the issue during a meeting.

• Task Success Rate: How many users successfully complete a task using your product? This metric is crucial and should ideally be tracked during user testing. You might ask, "What if my company is a fast-paced startup that doesn’t invest in user testing?" That’s fine, as long as they’re willing to invest in analytics software for their MVP and track metrics post-launch.

Imagine a startup that just pushes out an MVP without any provisions for collecting data post-launch. That startup is headed for failure. The purpose of an MVP is to create the leanest usable version of their product and test with real users. This is the best time to fail and learn from mistakes. At this stage, usability issues can be excused as long as users are getting value, but if this continues over time, the company will incur serious losses. If there’s no way to collect data from your MVP, then the MVP is without purpose.

You can measure this by dividing the number of users who successfully completed a task by the total number of users and converting it to a percentage. A good task success rate is usually between 80% and 90%.

• Error Rate: This is simply the rate at which users make mistakes while using your product. A product should have an error rate under 5%. A high error rate is a strong cause for alarm, and you will need to reevaluate the intuitiveness of your UX.

Measure this by dividing the number of errors made by users by the total number of interactions and converting it to a percentage.

• System Usability Scale (SUS): The SUS consists of 10 questions used to evaluate how usable a product is. After testing, users can answer these questions in a survey, and you can rate your product’s usability based on the results. An average SUS below 70% indicates that your product is not very usable.

Check out the System Usability Scale (if you only use dark mode like me, you’ll love the theme toggle). It was created by Stuart Cunningham , a senior computer science lecturer at the University of Chester, in 2020.

• Net Promoter Score (NPS): Ask your users how likely they are to recommend your product on a scale of 1–10. This score represents your NPS. A good NPS is generally 7 or above.
• Retention Rate: This is the percentage of returning users. When users find value, they're more likely to return and pay for that value—and when they become paying customers, they’re more likely to recommend your product to others.

Calculate the retention rate over a specified period (e.g., a week) by subtracting the number of new users from the number of users at the end of the period, dividing by the number of users at the beginning of the period, and converting it to a percentage. A retention rate above 70% after one week is considered good.

• Conversion Rate: Determine how many users complete a key action or task within your product. Calculate this by dividing the number of users who completed an action by the total number of visitors and converting it to a percentage.

These metrics are relatively straightforward to calculate and don’t require you to be a data analyst or content marketer.

Job Search Strategy II: Let Your Portfolio Open Doors

When someone wants to know your level of seniority or experience as a designer, they ask to see your past work. They want to gauge your expertise by your portfolio, and how you present your work matters just as much as the work itself.

One key thing to remember is: Show, Don't Tell. Hardly anyone will read a cookie-cutter, double-diamond case study. In real life, the design process isn’t scripted—reality is unpredictable, and design is anything but predictable.

Here are five tips to ensure your portfolio presents the best version of yourself:

1. Show, Don’t Tell: We often hear about storytelling, but remember: nobody wants to read a novel. Lengthy case studies can become boring and cause viewers to miss the key information. The trick is to provide plenty of clear, engaging visuals while weaving a realistic narrative with ups and downs, unpredictabilities, mistakes, solutions, and both victories and failures. Consider using the STAR+ framework (Situation, Task, Action, Result/Impact, and Learning), but make sure you show plenty of evidence.
2. High Resolution is Key: I learned this the hard way when I realized my emergency portfolio had low-quality images because I exported them outside of Figma before mocking them up. To avoid this, ensure your images have high resolution—especially for mobile projects. Scale those frames by 3x if necessary, and create mockups directly in Figma using plugins or your own simple mockup designs. Your pixels should be as clear as day.
3. Replace Images with GIFs: The quickest way to grab attention is through motion. Use GIFs or add subtle hover effects to your project images to make them stand out.
4. Dribbble/Behance Are Not Portfolios: While these platforms can attract prospects, they shouldn’t be your primary portfolio. They offer limited customization and resemble a designer marketplace, where your work can be easily overshadowed by others. Instead, consider using tools like Notion or no-code platforms such as Framer, Webflow, Squarespace, or Carrd to build a custom portfolio.
5. Embed an Introduction Video: A recruiter is likely to spend more time on a single introductory video than on all your case studies combined. Create a video where you talk about yourself, your background, your strengths, your experience, your projects, what sets you apart, and the value you bring. You can host it on Loom, Vimeo, or YouTube and embed it in your portfolio.

Resources:

1. Super.so: A no-code website builder that transforms your Notion pages into fast, customizable, and beautifully designed websites. Visit Super.so
2. System Usability Scale (SUS): Learn more about SUS and how to use it to evaluate the usability of your products. System Usability Scale
3. Design Portfolio Inspiration: Check out curated collections of inspiring portfolios on platforms like Webflow, Awwards, Muzli, CareerFoundry, Bestfolios, Behance, and Dribbble for ideas on how to showcase your work.
4. No-Code Tools for Designers Explore tools like Framer, Webflow, Squarespace, and Carrd to build a personalized portfolio that stands out. Framer | Webflow | Squarespace | Carrd

And now, we've come to the end of this article. I hope you enjoyed it and, most importantly, gained a lot of value. Do you have any topics you’d like me to cover in my next article? Please drop your suggestions in the comments.

This article is an edition of my newsletter, The Designer's Edge—a newsletter dedicated to helping designers stand out, grow, and make an impact. Every week, I share actionable tips, career insights, and strategies to help designers upskill and effectively navigate the current UX job market.

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Until my next article!