A new discipline has emerged in the world of product development: Growth design.
But what does that term actually mean?
What is growth design?
Growth design is a discipline that combines product design, data analytics, and marketing to create products that drive user acquisition, retention, and revenue. It’s about creating a seamless user experience that encourages users to take specific actions that lead to growth.
UX Planet
Growth design is the strategic and creative process of improving a product or website to increase engagement and drive adoption.
At my current company, the role of growth designer helps new AND existing users discover, activate, and deepen engagement with the platform.
The user experience is still the most important, but we’re also very focused on business outcomes.
Growth designers play a pivotal role in shaping and refining the user journey, focusing on improving key metrics, such as conversion rates, user activation, and revenue generation.
How is growth design different than UX design?
While growth design shares some commonalities with UX design and product design, there are some differences.
UX design focuses on creating seamless and delightful experiences that meet user needs.
Growth design also does this, but also hones in on driving measurable business growth through systematic experimentation, optimization, and iterative improvements.
It places a particular emphasis on data analysis, user psychology, and conversion rate optimization to fuel sustainable growth.
We often think about design being about solving problems. A growth designer might work on problems like:
- How can we get more users to notice and try this feature?
- How can we decrease time to value for a new user?
- How can we make this more intuitive for a new user?
- How can we make this process self-serve, to increase product adoption at scale?
- How can we make our sign-up process faster?
- And so on.
It’s also worth noting that many designers are already operating with a growth mindset and doing growth design work, but without the label or dedicated focus.
Essential skills of a growth designer
To excel in the field of growth design, designers need to possess a unique blend of skills and expertise.
In my experience, conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a wonderful introduction to growth design. Though often associated with marketing websites, CRO is is the process of increasing the percentage of users (or website visitors) to take a desired action, often through experimentation. CRO practitioners map and measure the funnel, identifying areas of opportunity and impact.
To apply this approach on the product side requires similar mapping and measuring of the end-to-end journey for the customer. Thus growth designers can identify and implement improvements that lead to increased user actions and measurable outcomes.
Having a deep understanding of user psychology also equips growth designers to understand user motivations, decision-making processes, and behavioral triggers.
Additionally, expertise in experimentation methodologies, data analysis, A/B testing, and user research empowers growth designers to gather actionable insights and iterate on design solutions effectively.
Is growth design on the product or marketing side?
In my opinion, the best growth designers think end to end. And the end-to-end vision spans the ENTIRE customer journey, including marketing and marketing properties. An effective growth designer is thinking about the full experience and striving for continuity and optimization across all touch points.
Also of note: some marketing teams have a strategist role who is focused on growth, and this person also often performs UX work and designs the web experience. Before moving to product design, I served in a role like this for a decade.
My role as a growth designer
At my current company, I work in a product designer role that is focused on growth. In this role, I primarily help new and existing users discover, activate, and deepen engagement with the platform. I work closely with others on the team, like our UX researchers and our end-to-end staff designer.
To do this, I map, measure, and monitor the user lifecycle to identify opportunities to drive acquisition, activation, and retention (often through experiments).
One area of particular focus is the first-time user experience and onboarding.
By applying conversion rate optimization techniques, psychological principles, and experimentation, we aim to refine touchpoints like registration and onboarding, ensuring a seamless and compelling user journey that maximizes user activation and retention.
Resources to learn more
Growth design represents a powerful approach to drive business growth, combining the principles of UX design, product design, and strategic optimization.
By focusing on critical areas such as the first-time user experience, communicating value, and onboarding, companies can harness the full potential of growth design to create sustainable and thriving digital products.
If you are a designer interesting in expanding your skills for growth design, here are some great resources to check out:
- Digital psychology course from CXL – they also have courses on conversion optimization, neuromarketing, and experimentation programs
- Behavioral Design Academy
- Growth.design – incredible case studies
- Product Led -has one of the best blogs in the business
AlterSpark – behavioral science - Book: Robert Cialdini – “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion”
- Book: Roger Dooley – “Friction” and “Brainfluence”
- Book: Susan Weinschenk – “100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People” and “How to Get People to Do Stuff: Master the Art and Science of Persuasion and Motivation”
Photo by Francesco Gallarotti on Unsplash
