You want to redesign your website or product – and one of your goals is to improve the “user experience” (because that’s important, it’s a “thing” by now, it’s just what you do).

When I ask my clients about their website goals, I often get very broad and generic responses: We want a simpler navigation. Cleaner layout. Fewer clicks. Better UX.
And it does make sense, right?

But here’s the thing: “simpler” doesn’t mean anything on its own.
Simpler for who? Simpler to do what? Simpler so that what happens?

If your team isn’t clear on the underlying problem—or the business goal you’re trying to support—then all that UX work might look good. But it probably won’t do much.

You’ll end up with a shinier interface that doesn’t perform better.
Or a cleaner layout that still attracts the wrong audience.
Or a bunch of new features that feel like improvements—but don’t actually move the needle.

Good UX starts with clarity. And clarity starts with knowing what you’re trying to achieve as a business.

UX Is Not a Checklist

Let’s get one thing straight: UX is not just the final coat of paint or a simple collection of best practices.

But that’s how it’s often treated.
“We’ll do the strategy, define the target audience, maybe create a few personas—then bring in someone to ‘UX it up.’”

Yes, usability matters. Clarity matters. Consistency matters. But UX is not a checklist.
It’s not something you “plug in” at the end to make things feel nicer.
And it’s definitely not just about how things look.

UX is the bridge between your user and your business. It’s how someone experiences your product, your content, your offer—and whether or not they stick around.

And that experience? It’s shaped by the decisions you make long before a designer opens a design tool like Figma.
Decisions about what problems you’re solving, who you’re solving them for, and why it matters for your business.

Which brings us to the question most teams skip:
What exactly are we trying to achieve?

Start with your business goals

What is a business goal – and why is it relevant for UX?

A business goal is what success looks like for your organization. Not a vibe. Not a wish. A clear outcome.

When I ask teams about the business goals, I often hear stuff like:

• “We want to grow.”
• “We want to improve the experience.”
• “We want to reach a broader audience.”

All good intentions. But those aren’t goals—they’re headlines.
They’re too vague to drive smart decisions.

A good business goal is:

• Specific – not “grow,” but grow by how much?
• Measurable – what number moves if we get this right?
• Tied to a priority – are we after more signups? Better retention? Lower support costs?
• Grounded in time – are we talking next quarter or next year?

Now—why does this matter for UX?

Because UX is how your goals meet reality.
It’s how someone experiences what you’ve built, understands your value, and decides to act.

So if your business goal is:

• “Increase B2B trial signups by 15% in Q3,”
  then UX should focus on clarity, trust, and reducing signup friction.

If your goal is:

• “Expand into a new audience segment,”
  then UX needs to understand what matters to that audience—and what’s getting in their way.

Without that context, the UX work is just guesswork.
Nice guesswork, maybe. But still guesswork.

How do you align your UX and business goals, without putting the brakes on your project?

While sometimes there is a bit more research and alignment work required, most often you can get very far by simply asking the right questions to stakeholders, and actually listening to the answers.

Here are three simple steps to get you going:

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Step 1: Ask These Four Stakeholder Questions

You can drop these into a Slack thread. Add them to your next project kickoff doc. Or just send them around by email.

They work. I use them all the time.

1. What’s the one business outcome we care about most in this project?
   (Not 12. One. Be ruthless.)
2. Who are we trying to influence or support?
   (Be specific. Is it new users? Power users? Lapsed customers?)
3. What behavior do we want from them?
   (Sign up, refer a friend, reduce calls to support, complete a task faster… you get the idea.)
4. What’s in their way right now?
   (Confusion, too many steps, missing content, lack of trust?)

That’s it. These four questions create a bridge between business goals and user experience—without any buzzwords.

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Step 2: Map the Triangle

Think of every good UX decision as sitting in a triangle:

• What’s desirable for the user?
• What’s viable for the business?
• What’s feasible for the tech or team?

Most teams focus on one corner. Or two if they’re lucky.
But if you ignore the business side, your UX will never drive outcomes—it’ll just decorate them.

A beautiful flow that doesn’t support the business is just a fancy detour.

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Step 3: Align—Even If It’s Messy

This doesn’t need to be a full-day offsite. But someone has to get everyone in a (virtual) room to answer:

• What are we really trying to achieve?
• How will we know it’s working?
• What does success look like—for users and for us?

Bonus: even asking these questions often exposes hidden assumptions or competing priorities before they cause trouble later.

What Happens When You Skip This—and What Happens When You Don’t

Let’s be honest: this kind of goal-setting step often gets skipped.
Not because people are lazy, but because they’re in a hurry.

“We don’t have time for all that—we just need to make it better.”

I totally get it. But here’s what usually happens when you jump into UX without aligning on goals first:

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When you skip it…

• You get a cleaner design—but it’s still unclear to the user what action to take.
• You reduce clicks—but conversion doesn’t improve.
• You hear, “It looks better,” but not, “It works better.”
• You spend more time debating design decisions, because nobody agrees on what success actually means.

Basically: lots of effort, not a lot of impact.

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But when you don’t skip it…

• You make faster decisions, because your priorities are clear.
• You create an experience that’s actually useful and aligned with your users.
• You can measure progress and show results that matter to leadership.
• And bonus—you get better collaboration across teams, because everyone’s pulling in the same direction.

Clarity is a multiplier. It makes everything that follows—research, design, content, even development—easier, faster, and more effective.

In Short: Clarity Before Design

If there’s one thing I hope you take away from this, it’s this:

Don’t start with UX. Start with the goal.

Yes—making your product or website simpler, cleaner, easier to use… that’s a great ambition.
But if you don’t first define why you’re doing it—and what you’re aiming to change—it’s just surface polish.

UX is how your users experience your value. But if you’re not clear on the value—or the outcome—you’re designing in the dark.

So before you jump into design, do this:

• Get clear on your business goals.
• Understand the user behaviors that support them.
• Map the friction.
• Align your team.

Clarity is step one.

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Want help getting there?

I offer a short, focused session called the UX Clarity Sprint—designed to help marketing and product teams get aligned on what they’re solving, why it matters, and how to move forward with confidence.
Check out how it works →

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Further Reading

Here is some input for additional input and methods to use.

The importance of UX for business growth (Source: Entrepreneur)

Setting business goals and objectives (Source: Harvard Business School)

Balancing user goals vs business goals (Source: UX Pin)

4 business canvases in one place (Source: Miro)