Too often, product design stops at “looking good” or “feeling right.” But unless it drives real user behavior and delivers measurable outcomes, design is just decoration.
Good design should not only be intuitive — it should also move metrics.

When I start a new project, I always ask: What are we trying to improve? Whether it’s reducing drop-off, increasing sign-ups, or helping users complete a key task faster, the goal must be clear. From that point, every design decision — from button placement to layout hierarchy — is tied back to that goal.

On one project, we redesigned a SaaS onboarding flow. The old version looked fine visually, but it wasn’t converting. After a series of user interviews and friction mapping, we found out users were getting lost during step three. A small content tweak and clearer progress indicators resulted in a 42% increase in completion. That’s the power of goal-oriented design.

In this post, I’ll walk through my process for tying design work to outcomes, using real project examples and data-backed decision-making. If you're working on a product team and want design to be more than just visuals, this is for you.