How I aligned formative vision with business priorities
Contribution
Introduced a shared model to express design proposals in business-relevant terms by balancing user value against business impact
Role
Led in partnership with product leadership
Scope
Proposal level process improvements
Takeaway
Helped teams more clearly estimate business impact for initiative proposals
The Challenge
Design was brought in to execute decisions—but not to shape them. The team was skilled and efficient, but its contributions were perceived as visual or tactical. Reviews focused on polish, not purpose. There was no clear structure to show how design work created value, and no shared language for tying user needs to business outcomes.
Without a way to surface user priorities as business opportunities, roadmap decisions skewed toward engineering feasibility or stakeholder pressure. Design was reactive—polishing outputs rather than influencing direction. As a result, user insight rarely reached the strategy table, and high-potential work was often deprioritized or misunderstood.
My Response
I introduced a four-part model to help teams connect user needs to business outcomes. Partnering with product leadership, I translated translating user insight and feature requests into four strategic levers: Improve Presentation, Optimize Flows, Add Capabilities, or Launch New Features.
Every proposal was mapped to one of these levers—helping teams clarify where it fit in the business, and research tied user goals to measurable outcomes like retention, engagement, or revenue.
This structure gave the team a shared vocabulary for evaluating tradeoffs. Instead of jumping straight into user value justification for new proposals, teams now started by aligning estimated user value to its most appropriate business value.
The Win
Design moved upstream. Stakeholders expected proposals to be framed before priorities were locked—using the four-part model to align user needs and business goals. Prioritization sharpened, and conversations shifted from pitching solutions to clarifying which needs warranted investment.
Design became a strategic contributor by making business impact visible, improving confidence across product and engineering. Teams aligned faster and executed in parallel more efficiently.
Key Outcomes
Framed proposals through user value and business levers to earn early trust
Equipped teams to estimate impact by tying design work to strategic outcomes
Earned design a seat in planning by aligning decisions to measurable value
Strategic Insight
Design earns strategic trust when it translates user insight into investable options:
Frameworks that map user needs to business levers enable early influence
Strategic clarity grows when design weighs tradeoffs—not just proposes features
The right work gets built when teams look to user value to drive outcomes