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Get a seat at the table and build the design career you want. This podcast is for designers looking to break in, level up, and take control of their careers—whether you're freelancing, climbing the corporate ladder, or just trying to get noticed. Every two weeks, we dive into career fundamentals, design best practices, and the hottest topics in the design community.
Should you mention the specific numbers or more or less specific numbers in in conversion rate? Because I feel like, you know, 20% increase. That's level one. Like, you can just say it. But should you go a level beyond that and say like, okay, it's 20%, meaning x amount of euros or dollars each month for this company?
Nick:Or
Tyler:I think you should get
Nick:officially live. We're officially live exactly. I mean, this is just an experiment. I it's hard to believe, but I finally figured out how you should write a case study that gets you a job or a project or a contract. And it came to me from a book that isn't even about design.
Tyler:Which book is this?
Nick:Well, the the book is oversubscribed by Daniel Priestley. It's probably a very well known book because everyone I tell about it, it's like, oh, yeah. Of course. I want to read it. You know?
Nick:But it has it mentions somewhere in the middle of the book, it mentions, like, around four reasons why someone should subscribe to you as a business. And I was like, hey. Wait a minute. That works for a designer as well. You you're subscribing to a business or, you know, you're hiring a designer.
Nick:You're paying someone to do something for you, and it clicked for me instantly. I was like, yep. That's it. That's it. That's something we should talk about, and here we are.
Tyler:So what's number one? I'm very curious.
Nick:Well, the first thing, as obvious as it sounds, is, you know, the reason one, someone hires you to make more money, perhaps to to if if it's a SaaS or a tech company, is to, you know, raise the the magical MRR number, monthly recurring revenue. You know? I mean, I think that's quite obvious. Right? Yeah.
Nick:But still something to think about. And I know I don't want to go into a bigger rant right away, but just something that I noticed within myself, but also within the the designers I tried to help is that, you know, a lot of stuff on your portfolio or on your LinkedIn profile or a case study, they all talk about, you know, I want to bring joy, delightful user experience. And, you know, that's true. Like, I you probably want to do that as well, you know, build something you're proud of, but it doesn't really talk about that big reason, you know, the the make money reason. And, you know, from designer to designer, you you get it, and I get it.
Nick:You know, of course, something that brings you joy, it's more likely for you to spend money on, and that will make your employer more money. But speaking their language, really being specific about, you know, here's how this delightful experience that brings people joy brings you money. Here's how we did it. I think it's something you should put should put more into more of into your case studies.
Tyler:That's true. I think as designers, we well, it's part of the craft of, like, what we learn. Like, first principles is, like, how how can we pull for the user or kinda how can we kind of we lean heavy into, like, the user experience part.
Nick:Mhmm.
Tyler:And then to your earlier point, like, how can we make a delightful experience? Well, to like, the first part of your statement, like, making the business money, if the man if the business doesn't make money, we can't delight those users. So there's there's this delicate balance of, if you wanna serve your users or your client base or or these personas, the it's reciprocal. Like, we give value to the users of this this SaaS product. But in return, there is this money exchange so that we can keep improving said product.
Tyler:So that's Mhmm. Essentially, like, the theory. So, like, let's build a product people will pay for. And as they pay for this product or service, we get to do incremental improvements so that we're continue facilitate the continual delivery of that so offset value.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. And then just to extend what you're saying, like, the companies make money also to be able to pay you. You know? So it's also it's it's a win win all around.
Nick:You know, happy user, happy business, happy designer. You said crafts and the things you've learned makes me think about education, you know, whether it's formal, like a university or a boot camp. But did you have any form of, you know, business subjects in school? You know, stakeholder management, money money business, and then that kind of stuff.
Tyler:Exactly zero. I think it's probably the same there there's some things that we should be taught in school. Like, the business part of it is super important. Also, taxes we never learned in school, but that's beside the point.
Nick:Yeah. Same. Same. Same. Yeah.
Tyler:It's it's something maybe it's it's a good strategy. You're learning the fundamentals skill, like, hard skills, and then you learn it later. But it's you should probably learn both just because what we're doing as designers, and I think it's more relevant in today's time is, like, for the bridge between the business and the consumer or the user And understanding that and then experience of, like, the business ecosystem of how that SaaS Yeah. Course or or or or service works is how you're gonna deliver a better experience.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. Because the reason I'm asking is because I have the same thing. You know, I went to design school, and I learned design. You know, very hard skill focused.
Nick:Nothing about taxes, indeed. Nothing about mortgages. Cool. But yeah. And also nothing about how to sell and and business focus.
Nick:So, yeah, that I mean, that's something we discussed months ago in an episode, right, about, you know, the the things we didn't have in school, and and school was lying to you, know, that kind of stuff. So another thing related to this, you know, about the making money and the the delightfulness people talk about, you know, I'm curious what you think. But we have at one of my favorite projects, we have a scorecard, levels one to five, why where number one is horrible and five is memorable. Like, I remember this. This is or you could easily replace it with delightful or joyful or any of those happy words, basically.
Nick:And whenever we are working on something, we're looking at the current score. Like, well, it's currently a two. It's kinda meh. You know, it's there. It does its thing, but it's not easy to use.
Nick:It's not fun. What is our goal? Do we want to make it a three or four or a five, but then being aware that five, delightful, is super challenging. So Yeah. And when people talk about I'm all about a creating a delightful experience, I'm wondering if that's even something they can deliver on.
Nick:Like, can you make something that's truly delightful? Can you score a five out of five all the time, anytime? Because I sure can. Like, I can go to a tree super easy, a four quite easy, but then a five. Like, that's so much work to figure out what the five even is.
Nick:So meaning that you are probably overpromising something and also promising the wrong thing because you're not even talking about making them money.
Tyler:Yeah. I think I approach it as not a overall score of delightfulness, but I I Mhmm. I like to inject a delightful moment. Right. So, like, I don't know if that could be maybe it's just a a a checkbox that you cross off.
Tyler:So, like, during this I have this end to end experience or this feature, there's a moment that is, a reinforcement of value. It's like, oh, I've gone through the experience. I have a, like, this adrenaline spike because I was rewarded, and the vehicle is this delightful moment. So don't think necessarily needs to be having a delightful experience, but, like, have a moment in there as a as a reward or or something that kinda gives value, like, during that experience.
Nick:Yeah. That makes sense. You know, it's it's a bit of a judgment call also. Like, you know, some people are are very strict in how they would score something, while others are like, yeah. This this has been delightful.
Nick:Nice. Some of our listeners have mentioned to us, like, well, how about some examples? And I think that's that's great feedback on on our show. So Yeah. How about some examples?
Nick:Like, do you like, what would have you created projects where you can very clearly create a case study where you can say something like, well, here's what we did, and here's how it made someone money?
Tyler:How I like to position my case studies now is, like, what business KPI am I pushing for? The easy one that everyone or all most designers understand is conversion. Like, I I created this feature that increased the conversion rate by, I don't know, 20%, let's say. Like and that, you can you can do some napkin math as it the ROI is if you're making $10,000 a month for the business, increase by 20% in conversion. You can do the math there.
Tyler:Mhmm. An increase in MRR. I think that's the easy one. And then another one I like to use is adoption. That's the one that I'm focusing on this year rather because that's the one that's a long term play.
Tyler:And what I mean by that is after the conversion, someone signed up for your product and service, they can abandon. Like, they can forget about your tool. If it doesn't fulfill that usefulness, then they're just gonna abandon it. So, like, how can you get someone to adopt your product? Meaning that they're they're logging in every day, for example, and using it every day.
Tyler:And that leads to an upsell. Like, I found this product useful. It this tool's ingrained in my day to day. This is gonna be leading to the upsells opposite that the business has.
Nick:I think Yeah.
Tyler:That's the that's that's the top one for you. Conversion is easy, but adoption is the the trickier one for sure.
Nick:Right. I I think it's very interesting. Actually, the adoption one, I didn't really consider it. So then the upsells, is that something that happens automatically, you know, through email sequences, or did you mean something extra beyond that, you know, asking just to be, you know, as specific as we can for listeners?
Tyler:Yeah. I think there's a difference between the type of products you're building. So I think there's a distinction between b to c and b to b. I think b to b to c, there's a clear next step. So, like, to your point, an email sequence is the next step.
Tyler:So they've used you can set a mechanism. They've used the product continuously for the first thirty, sixty, ninety days.
Nick:Mhmm.
Tyler:Let's trigger either an email sequence or a model like, an in app experience upselling the next stage. And then that's a clear, okay. We've increased MRR because they've jumped up to the next package. Right.
Nick:Right.
Tyler:In in b two b, it's a bit different because it requires a sales team go to market, the customer success. So the adoption metric is a signal to the internal team to reach out to the customer. So they've Right. Our our engagement metrics are consistently high for this specific company. Mhmm.
Tyler:This is a signal whether you leverage Mixpanel as, like, that kind of tools. Like, they've they've triggered the the signal within Mixpanel. It is a great opportunity to, like, reach out and have conversations about, like, the next tier or the next package or bundle that'll be great for them.
Nick:Right. Right. And then there's conversion rate there too, but that's perhaps a very big loop that you that go into. Should you mention the specific numbers or more or less specific numbers in in conversion rate? Because I feel like, you know, 20% increase, that's level one.
Nick:Like, you can just say it. But should you go a level beyond that and say, like, okay. It's 20%, meaning x amount of euros or dollars each month for this company? Or
Tyler:I think you should get as granular as you can. So let I think that's, like, the lower level, like, 20%. And that can get challenged a lot during, like, job interviews or, like, during the entry process. Like, it may be perceived like, oh, this person just put a random number, but how do you back up that number? Yeah.
Tyler:So I think, like, as a designer, you should be very proactive in taking screenshot. If you have access to, like, analytics tools
Nick:Mhmm.
Tyler:Like, doing the math and then getting those calculations as you're doing like, as you wrap up a project. So, like, 20%, but equates to find out what it costs per seat per user and then do the math there. Yeah. Calculate it per month. Calculate it per year.
Tyler:Like, it's I think it's really important now to have proof behind the work you've done. Not just saying, like, in a case study saying these metrics, they don't mean nothing. But if you have an actual I think a tip is, like, if you have a snapshot of a dashboard, that's that's really concrete proof that you've done the work.
Nick:Right. Right. Yeah. So what if you don't have any access to to, you know, analytics or metrics or financials like that? Like, is the the safe oh, sorry.
Nick:Is the the the make more money case study? Is that just out of reach, or is there something else you could do?
Tyler:This is actually something that I've been asked a lot lately in the last month or two. Like, how do I show the value in my in my case study? But if I I didn't get access to the metrics or analytics at all, what what I often suggest is using a benchmark. So, like, our products are not unique little snowflakes. There's there's different permutations of these different types of softwares.
Tyler:Or Mhmm. That's why there's things like competitors. But you can leverage benchmarks as a metrics in your case study. So if you don't have the the analytics directly, you can just do some research, do a a quick search in in Claude or ChatGPT. I I delivered on this specific feature, outline it, and then ask Mhmm.
Tyler:What are the benchmarks for this type of feature and what types of KPI lifts from a business perspective does it affect? So then that's how you can kind of craft your case study. Like, I delivered a feature that has been benchmarked to to increase these KPIs. That's the value that you're delivering Mhmm. Even though you don't have direct access to, like, the the MRR, ARR, like, any of the KPIs.
Nick:Right. Yeah. Of course. I mean, that's a good one. I I never thought about benchmarking.
Nick:That's time to revisit my own case studies.
Tyler:Well, it's also, like, very useful for junior designers. Like, they're doing fake projects. How do they show the ROI of something that never never saw the light of the year and was actually never launched?
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, that's that's one of the most common questions on one of the most common pieces of advice in design. Like, why you just talk about money, talk about conversion rates, blah blah blah. Well, what if I didn't have any?
Nick:You know? That's very challenging, and I have some thoughts there. For example, I mean, if it's one of the the reasons to hire someone is is out of those four that I have in mind, but something that's related here is to make a change to the business itself, and that indirectly could impact one of those four reasons, you know, three of which we still have to discuss. So for one of the one of the best case studies I made was for a a Dutch ministry where my biggest impact was about raising the level of design maturity or UX maturity within the department, and that's tough to measure. Like, there's another something like a number of people that attend the design review each week, you know, that it went up or something.
Nick:Now you could. You know, it would be a bit strange, but the thing you do in that case is, you know, you claim it to be true, but you can look at the a to z, like, start to finish time it takes to go from idea to something being live. And then you can say, well, that helps us make more money, you know, because more better features soon launched sooner mean that it's a better fit for our users, and it's more likely for them to adopt, like you say, or to convert in a better way. So, yeah, make a change to a company, also a a good one. And if you if it's a personal project, you say, or a fake project, include a testimonial even if it's just from one commenter online where you asked for help.
Nick:You know? I mean, that's at least it's something. Right? But being I'm fully fully aware that it's much more challenging and and difficult compared to an, quote, unquote, actual project.
Tyler:That actually might be a very underrated one. That's a really good one. I think often we think the value that we have to put forward is, like, here's what I can do. Here's my output. But, like, as you kind of mature into the kind of understanding, like, culture within business, doing great output but also affecting bringing up others with you is also seen as really good value.
Tyler:Like, if I put if I plop Nick and his team, he delivers quality every single time, but also he increases the quality of the output from the people around him.
Nick:Yes. That's exactly it. And the reason I wrote about it in that particular case study was because the the environment being as as political as it is, you know, working for a government agency, like, everything is slow. You know, if you're there for a year, let's say, a one year project, the actual output is most likely going to be lower compared to you working at a start up for one year. So then it's also a bit strategic from my end.
Nick:Like, what am I going to focus on in my case study? So I went more for the changes I made to the business compared to the changes the business makes for their users because I thought my impact there was bigger compared to, quote, unquote, the average. So, yeah, get a testimonial if you can, either from a stakeholder, preferable, or if that's not possible, even if it's a comment on Reddit or your Google form that you made. It beats having no testimonial.
Tyler:Very true. And you should be active in in kind of seeking those testimonials or, like, those pieces of feedback. Like Yeah. Don't wait till a month or two or a year down the like, ask for it right away even if you're a mid project.
Nick:Yeah. Oh, yeah. For sure. Yeah. In my corporate days, at the end of the year, you always had the year end review, and then they ask for testimonials.
Nick:So then you know when it's November, all your colleagues are sending you messages like, hey. Can you can you write me a testimonial? Very stressful. Also, if you're getting a reply are low because everyone's asking everyone. But then I was perfectly calm because I already asked for testimonials in June and March.
Nick:You know? So I was very happy with with that. So, yeah, 1000% agree. Yeah. Ask for testimonials before you need them.
Nick:Right? Alright. So, I mean, that's one. We're already talking quite specifically about the first one. The second one is actually the opposite, although still as positive of the first one.
Nick:So the first one was people hire designers to help them make money. And the second reason is people hire designers to help them save money. Exactly. You know? And that notes, you might say, like, well, that saving money means making money and yeah.
Nick:But the mindset is slightly different. And I do actually have a very specific example that hopefully will make make a lot of sense from a real project from quite a few years ago already by now, like 2021 or something, 2020 perhaps, and that was one of the the overflowing customer support.
Tyler:A nailed it.
Nick:A tool from a certain company was meant to be useful, but it was very confusing. So lots and lots of people were just sending messages and tickets to customer support, meaning that they were there there was a delay before people before your specific tickets could get a reply or, you know, even more delay before it could be resolved. So by fixing the tool, redesigning it, doing a whole UX project around it, figuring out why it's unclear how to make it better, testing, prototyping, designing, you know, the whole thing resulted in, you know, less support tickets being created around that tool. That brings down the queue time, you know, the delay. People are being able to are getting helped quicker, you know, and that saves them money because because the issue that someone has and the reason for them to perhaps churn, get angry, talk badly about your company, you know, those reasons were going away way quicker.
Nick:You know? So you help you you design in a way to make something better, and that helps them save money, basically, by being able to do things quicker in a less annoying way.
Tyler:Yeah. I think a quick napkin math for that one is, like, do a rough estimate of, like, what's the salary of a customer success agent, like, hourly, and then how many tickets, and then how many tickets do they address during in the day on that specific topic. To to your example Yeah. Like, you would categorize that type of ticket. And then if that's if your solution kinda wiped that around, like, that's the math there.
Tyler:And I think it it's it's like, the customer success, like, bucket is really powerful because what you generally wanna do is kind of wipe out the you have a high volume of, like, low effort, like, nitty like, this nitpicky stuff. Like, if you can wipe out, like, the base level here, the things that most customers kinda stumble over, you're basically unlocking the customer success team to focus on higher impact items. Like Yeah. If you're getting them past, like, this, like, low the low hanging fruit to, like, here when I'm actually jumping on a call or or jumping on the chat with a customer, it's actually a high impact stuff. So it's less about, like, where is this button?
Tyler:Where is that thing? It's, oh, I'm confused about this flow. Then as a customer success manager, I'm jumping on, here's how you do it. And then it facilitates making the experience of your product a bit more sticky.
Nick:Mhmm. Oh, interesting. So you bay what you basically want is people to focus on something as zoomed out as possible. So not one stick, but rather all this
Tyler:Exactly. Like, to your example and also, like, let's say you have, like, navi like, a high volume of navigational tickets. Like, users aren't able to find to navigate to the different parts of the app, which means, like, the the fix there is kind of reworking the navigation within your application. Once that's fixed, they're not focused on getting to things. They're focused on the task to complete the certain actions or, like, the certain features that you've enabled in your in your platform.
Nick:Yeah. Oh, that's that's very cool. Yeah. It it's very similar to what I once said to someone, like, you shouldn't test everything, like, every little button and every little color and every little alignment because it's too too much into the details, and then it just gets annoying and it slows you down, but rather zoom out and think about the whole thing. Yeah.
Nick:I mean, that's very interesting. For everything else, I think, you know, the the save time versus make sorry, save money versus make money reasons. I think there's quite a lot of overlap there. You know, it it by saving money, you also make money, and by make money, you might even save some money as well. So one thing I really want to say is that people shouldn't really get stuck in figuring out the right reason.
Nick:Right? They're both fine, but it's good to be aware of the goal you're aiming for in this case.
Tyler:Yeah. Yeah. There is overlap. Like, you would you would probably categorize, this save money as, like, opportunity cost because your team is in the customer success. That's not what because your team is focused on these these tickets.
Tyler:You're basically unlocking them to do other tasks. So, like Mhmm. A customer success agent is not just tasked with just answering customer calls. They're updating the the help center with better articles. Right.
Tyler:They're they're curating the onboarding in app experience copy. You're unlocking someone to do more high value or high impact tasks versus the low hanging fruits like a like a navigational task. Like Yeah. Let the unlock your team and so that the opportunity cost is, like, it's in both ends. So you're saving money, but we're also making money on the other end because they're focused on other day to day tasks that make Yeah.
Tyler:The company money in the long run.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. So and then then I also hear people being concerned about, you know, helping a company save money means that they will fire people. But I may be a little bit naive, but I I really believe in what you're saying. Like, it's not they're they're not going to let people go, but they will use the same number of people to do more.
Nick:Same reason why I'm not as concerned about, you know, AI impact on our our work at least. You know? They they say, like, well, you're a 10 x designer now, so they need x less designers. You can also have 10 designers do the work of 100 designers. You know?
Nick:So I'm actually quite positive about something that might appear scary to to some people and and to myself every now and then as well, quite frankly.
Tyler:That's the same perception I had. Like, why would you get rid of people if they can do more? Like, AI is not gonna like, we can do these tasks faster, so that's where we're gonna cap our productivity level. Like, let's do less people to do the same amount with an AI tool or just enable everyone with these AI tools to to increase their output.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. True. True.
Tyler:Like, you you make more money by you make like, there's this this idea that to individually, if you wanna make have more money in your pocket or in your bank account, you make sure that you penny pinch and you save here. You're using coupons, etcetera, versus the real answer is make more money, and then you'll have more money.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. Well, also, it it's saving money is there's an end to it. Like, if if you look at your example of, you know, let's say it's a household, like, you can save some money on groceries, but at some point, you would still need the minimum requirement of groceries. Like, you cannot do without.
Nick:You need to eat. But making more money, in theory, of course, there's there's a limit to it. But, yes, healing is way more way higher compared to you saving money even without doing more work in terms of hours. I'm trying to focus on that a bit more this year to to increase my average hourly rate, basically,
Tyler:compared to
Nick:to last year. You know?
Tyler:I think that's
Nick:Same same hours, more money. That's another another thing.
Tyler:So the thing about it, like, if you charge more if you're a freelancer charging more, like, you you rank in more versus saving. And then if you're in house, do the work to get your promotion so you're making more money for the same amount of hours. It's it's the same thing.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. And and then also something I noticed in almost any discussion, we tend to think it's either or. Like, you're either going to help people make money or you're going to help them save money. You know, this happens for one reason, but usually, it's it's because of multiple smaller reasons.
Nick:So you you could have a a more complex case study for a very long term project where you've done multiple things, you know, where you've done both. So that's that's a little disclaimer I want to include here. Like, you it helps you you know, knowing these reasons helps you think and how to frame your case study and your portfolio and all these things, But it's not meant to create tunnel vision. Like, I'm going to this case study, I'm only going to write about how it made them money. You know?
Nick:Mhmm. You can make trips outside of that tunnel. Yeah.
Tyler:That was a great episode. So if you like this content and wanna hear more, please like and subscribe.
Nick:Yeah. And if you want to see more, please go to designtablepodcast.com, Spotify, Apple Music, all the big players, and more.