Better product decisions through UX

Between user focus and business objectives: Why well-informed product decisions are crucial

Your working day has just begun and the first thing you do is take a look at your backlog. It’s packed full of requirements and unfinished user story tickets. Your management is waiting for a decision on the next product priority, the sales team submitted an ‘urgent customer requirement’ just yesterday, and the latest data shows that users are dropping off at a completely different point than previously assumed. What do you do?

It is precisely at this moment that the essence of successful product management becomes clear: not merely managing backlogs, but making decisions in the face of uncertainty. With the aim of making the right choice for both users and the company.

In this article, you’ll learn how to put product decisions on a solid footing, why user-centred design and business objectives aren’t mutually exclusive, and what role user experience (UX) plays when it’s more than just design.

Why product decisions are more difficult today than ever before

Product management has always been closely linked to decision-making. In recent years, however, the landscape has changed significantly. Markets are evolving more rapidly, customer requirements are becoming more complex, and the number of possible solutions is constantly growing.

The sources of product requirements are diverse:

• management’s strategic objectives,
• short-term market and sales drivers,
• technical constraints arising from development, or
• individual users’ everyday needs.

At the same time, product decisions are rarely made on the basis of clear criteria. It is precisely these market dynamics and the various stakeholders, each with their own individual wishes, that complicate product work.

Against this backdrop, a key question arises: How can good product decisions be made when uncertainty is the norm?

The answer lies not so much in the search for complete information, but in the ability to base decisions on a robust foundation. And this is where user understanding, data and strategic objectives come into play.

User-centred design as the starting point for better product decisions

In many companies, user research is still viewed as an additional activity that is quickly sidelined when time is tight. Formulating hypotheses, validation and interpretation are often regarded as ‘nice to have’, rather than an integral part of product development.

Yet a lack of time is rarely the real problem. Far more often, there is a lack of shared understanding of the value that user research actually brings to product decisions.

When decisions are based predominantly on internal assumptions, the risk increases of developing solutions that miss the mark when it comes to real user problems. Teams then tend to focus their discussions on which features seem sensible, without sufficiently understanding which problems actually need to be solved.

User-centred design therefore does not mean analysing every decision in depth. What is crucial is to make assumptions visible and to test them systematically. The better a team understands user problems, the lower the risk of investing resources in solutions that are of little effect.

This makes user research the foundation for strategic product decisions, rather than merely a methodological tool for individual roles.

Why UX is now part of product strategy

The term ‘user experience’ is still often equated with design and usability. However, this understanding falls short.

Today, UX primarily provides insights into which problems are relevant to users and what impact these problems have on usage and business success. As such, UX influences not only the design of a product, but also its strategic direction.

User research can, for example, reveal why certain barriers lead to lower usage or why customers do not continue to use a product in the long term. These insights help product teams set priorities more effectively and direct investments more precisely.

In this way, UX is linked to product management at a strategic level:

• Product management primarily answers the questions of what should be developed and why this is relevant to the company.
• UX focuses more on who the product is being developed for and what problems actually exist.

Only by combining both perspectives can well-informed decisions be made.

Without a user-centred focus, features are created that are not used sufficiently. If the business perspective is neglected, solutions are created that have no strategic impact. Successful product development therefore does not arise from a single discipline, but from the interplay of both perspectives.

Between theory and reality: Why frameworks alone are not enough

Product management is often taught through frameworks and methodologies. Design Thinking, Jobs-to-be-Done and Opportunity Solution Trees give the impression of clearly structured process models.

The reality, however, is far less linear. Product development takes place in an environment characterised by uncertainty, time pressure and shifting priorities. New insights alter decisions, technical constraints set limits, and stakeholders pursue different objectives.

In practice, there is typically an interplay of various steps:

• Qualitative interviews provide initial hypotheses.
• Quantitative data test and refine these assumptions.
• Technical constraints set real-world limits.
• Business objectives influence prioritisation.
• Product decisions are made by balancing all perspectives.

What is crucial, therefore, is not the variety of methods used, but an understanding of the underlying principles: forming hypotheses, testing assumptions and translating insights into product decisions.

From user insights to informed product decisions

User research alone does not improve products. What matters is how insights are interpreted and translated into decisions.

In practice, qualitative and quantitative data are often considered in isolation or miscategorised. Qualitative data helps to understand patterns and causes, but is not representative. Quantitative data reveals trends and behaviours, but rarely explains the reasons behind them.

Informed product decisions can only be made by combining both perspectives. User problems must be identified, causes understood and potential solutions systematically evaluated. It is only through this process that individual observations can be turned into a robust basis for decision-making.

Three questions help to structure these insights:

1. What problem are we actually solving, and for whom?
2. What does the data tell us, and what does it fail to explain?
3. How does a potential solution benefit users and the company?

These questions sound simple. In practice, however, they are surprisingly rarely asked consistently.

Outcome rather than output: impact before implementation

Many product teams still focus heavily on output metrics such as features delivered or tickets closed. However, these say little about a product’s actual value.

It is more relevant to look at outcomes. The focus is not on which feature has been developed, but on which problem is being solved and what benefit this brings to users and the business.

This is precisely where UX intersects with product management. UX helps to highlight relevant problems, whilst product management prioritises them according to their strategic and commercial impact.

User-centred design and commercial success are often seen as opposites. In practice, however, there is a close connection. Products that solve user problems generally achieve better business results. They improve user retention, increase conversion rates and reduce misguided development efforts.

Investments in understanding users can be measured using metrics such as conversion, retention or support costs. This means that UX is not a cost factor, but rather a tool for risk reduction and value creation.

Conclusion

Product decisions will continue to be fraught with uncertainty in the future. Markets change, user behaviour evolves, and complete information is rarely available.

The key task is therefore not to make perfect decisions, but to base product decisions on as sound a foundation as possible.

Product management and UX are not separate disciplines with different objectives, but rather two perspectives on the same decision-making process. Successful products emerge where both perspectives are consistently brought together and where teams have the courage to make assumptions visible before they become decisions.

Notes:

Anyone wishing to make well-founded product decisions should understand user research, prioritisation, strategy and business objectives as an interconnected system. Only then is it possible to apply methods flexibly and adapt decisions to the specific context.

It is precisely this interplay that lies at the heart of the ProdUXtmanager®Masterclass, which Fabian Puls actively supports.

Would you, as an influencer or thought leader, like to discuss the combination of product management and UX? Then please share this post within your network.

Fabian Puls has published three more posts on the t2informatik Blog: