Why Design Teams Need a Shared Metric

Design teams are under constant pressure to demonstrate their value. Decision-makers point to usage analytics, conversion rates, and usability scores. These numbers matter, but they only tell part of the story—what the product does once it exists, not whether the design work behind it was set up to succeed in the first place.

Common frustrations among designers point to deeper structural issues:

  • Projects stall or lose momentum when priorities shift.
  • Strong design work doesn't always make it to production.
  • Teams are handed solutions rather than problems to solve.
  • Stakeholders are unavailable or uninvolved.
  • Business strategy and desired outcomes remain unclear.

These patterns repeat project after project. What designers lack is a consistent way to measure the conditions that allow impactful work to happen—before the product metrics ever come into play.

The Limits of Product Metrics

Product metrics measure outcomes, not the quality of the design process. Improving a poorly conceived product may boost numbers while still delivering something no one really needs. As one observer put it, measuring what is easy to measure leads to a kind of blindness: eventually we assume what can't be easily measured doesn't matter.

CI/CD and analytics tools are excellent at tracking behavior, and frameworks like the one Kristin Zibell outlines help tie UX metrics to business goals. But tracking clicks or scroll depth doesn't tell you whether you're building the right thing. The potential impact of design is a different kind of measurement—one that requires evaluating the foundations of a project before and during its development.

A Consistent Scale for Design Impact

The history of temperature measurement offers an analogy. Before Fahrenheit introduced fixed reference points—like a glass of icy water and a warm human armpit—there was no consistent language for talking about heat. Once constants existed, meaningful measurement and communication followed.

Design lacks that shared language. Teams use different processes, work in different environments, and face different constraints. Some projects evolve, some pivot, and some die without a record of why. A standard measure for design impact would give teams a way to compare experiences across projects, identify failure patterns, and communicate with stakeholders in a number they can grasp.

Following the familiar shape of the Double Diamond—divergent and convergent thinking across problem and solution spaces—the journey of a project is rarely consistent across teams. One team may skip the research phase entirely due to missing skills and have to pivot later. Another may follow Lean UX and see the project evolve. A third may run a Google Sprint and have the work shelved. Without a metric, the reasons behind those different fates stay anecdotal.

The Stakeholder Perspective

Stakeholders typically manage portfolios of interconnected projects within a broader business strategy. They weigh technical feasibility, financial risk, and future trends. Their focus is on moving work from strategy into delivery as efficiently as possible.

But projects often balloon in scope. They linger in problem and solution spaces, drawing questions from leadership: Why are we doing research? We already know this is true. Why is this project taking so long? Without a common metric, design teams struggle to answer these questions with evidence rather than opinion.

Introducing DIET

DIET frames a project's predictive health based on teams answering a set of questions—scored out of 10—at three stages. It pulls directly from the foundations design teams need to do impactful work.

Strategy stage: This is for when you first hear about a project.

  1. We understand the business need/outcome.
  2. We understand the user needs.
  3. The subject matter experts & stakeholders are involved.
  4. The constraints (financial, time & tech) of the project are clear.
  5. Do we have the skills needed?

Problem stage: This is when you have completed your research on the problem.

  1. We know how people currently solve the problem.
  2. The problem resonates with our users.
  3. We are solving the right problem.
  4. The subject matter experts & stakeholders are involved.
  5. Do we have the skills needed?

Solution stage: This is when you have designed and tested a solution.

  1. Our solution solved the problem.
  2. Our solution is commercially viable.
  3. Our solution is going to be put live.
  4. Have we recorded our learnings?
  5. Have we shared our story?

The method includes conditions that are often missing from project discussions, such as stakeholder involvement, skills on the team, and whether work will actually ship. A project may succeed at solving a problem yet still fail because the sum of these factors isn't aligned.

From Scores to Comparisons

In practice, DIET looks like two imaginary projects tracked over time. One shows low scores all the way through and ends in a poor outcome. Another scores well throughout and delivers a good result. With enough data, a constant emerges—a baseline for comparison similar to Fahrenheit's fixed points.

Once that baseline exists, teams can ask strategic questions:

  • Is staff turnover correlated with low project scores?
  • Do low-scoring projects take longer to complete?
  • Is team health worse on projects with poor DIET scores?

Those patterns can turn design impact from a subjective judgment into an observable and repeatable signal.

Using DIET in Practice

Teams can capture their DIET score at three key points during a project's lifecycle:

  • At the strategy, problem, and solution stages;
  • Every two weeks, such as at the start of a sprint;
  • In the retrospective at the end of the project.

A simple Google Sheet provides a template to get started.

Feedback loops are long, and maintaining scores requires discipline. Early adopters still see benefits: DIET acts as an early warning signal, prompts teams to share knowledge sooner, and gives individuals the confidence to raise concerns with managers.

A Common Language for Design

Successful organizations do well at communicating across levels. Numbers give people something to point to, focus a conversation, and attach a decision to. For design teams that have spent years nursing gut feelings through stakeholder meetings, the value of having that number is not just internal—it's the basis for a shared language that argues with data rather than opinion. DIET is an open-source effort still learning and evolving, but the goal is directionally clear: give designers a consistent way to measure and communicate the value of their work, project after project.