The hidden ROI of investing in better user experience

A friend of mine once went out to buy a toaster. He didn’t want anything fancy – just something that made toast without catching fire. But he walked into the shop, and within minutes, found himself holding a sleek little machine. It had buttons that glowed softly. The dial clicked just the right way. The crumb tray slid out without a fuss.

Outside the shop, he checked his receipt and laughed. He’d spent £70 on a toaster. “All because it made me feel smart for being careful with breadcrumbs,” he told me later.

At first, that sounded absurd – seventy pounds for attention to crumbs. But he still uses that toaster. It’s outlived three kettles and two microwaves. More importantly, he never complains about it. He recommends it often. A little thing, done well, stuck with him.

That’s how design works when it’s working. Quietly. Invisibly. Lovingly.

And that’s the trick with improving how people experience your product or service. It rarely involves fireworks or grand gestures. It’s usually about the quiet details. The ones people remember – not as features, but as feelings.

People Notice Good Design When They Feel Understood

I once used a banking app that felt like it didn’t trust me. It asked me the same questions, every time. It would show me ten menus just to do one thing. Eventually, I found a different bank. One with an app that, frankly, treated me like an adult.

What struck me wasn’t just the convenience. It was the feeling of being seen. Understood. Like someone on the other end of that design had actually tried to use it in real life – in a queue, with a toddler tugging at your sleeve and a shopping list in your head.

That feeling shapes decisions.

When users feel frustrated, confused, helpless – they leave. Not always immediately. But the trust fades. It becomes a relationship where the other person just doesn’t “get” you.

When users feel seen – truly seen – they stay. And more than that, they forgive you when other small things go wrong. Because they trust your intentions.

That’s not just good manners. That’s good business.

Cutting Frustration Saves Money (And Headaches)

Think for a moment about a customer service team. In many companies, they’re weighed down by questions that shouldn’t need to be asked: “Where do I find…?” “How do I…?” “Why doesn’t this work?”

And then there are the situations where someone wasn’t confused, just annoyed. “I had to enter my details three times.” “Your system forgot my order.” “It wouldn’t accept my login.”

Now ask yourself: how many of those calls, emails and support tickets could be avoided if someone, earlier on, had designed things more thoughtfully? If the experience had just made more sense?

Not only does improving usability reduce support costs – an obvious return – it saves your most expensive resource: people’s time. Your team’s time. Your users’ time.

But here’s the value fewer people talk about: it gives your team space to work on what really matters. Instead of constantly putting out fires, they can build, create and innovate. They can move forward.

Design Is a Business Choice, Not Just an Aesthetic One

I once worked with a small company that made software for schools. Their product solved a genuinely hard problem, and their clients liked them. But their interface looked like it hadn’t changed since the late 90s. The colours clashed. Navigation was chaotic. It worked – but just barely.

Internally, they debated the redesign for two years. “Why spend money on colours when we could add more features?” they’d ask.

Eventually, they took the plunge and invested – not just visually, but holistically – in making their product easier and more pleasing to use. They rethought the layout. Simplified the language. Tried to make the experience feel like help, not homework.

What happened?

Sales didn’t just go up – they accelerated. More importantly, customer churn dropped. For the first time, users were logging in not because they had to, but because they wanted to. Their product started turning up in conversations about “the nice one” among a sea of clunky alternatives.

Here’s the truth behind that turnaround: they didn’t change what the product did. They changed how it felt. And how it felt changed everything.

Good Design Is Not More Expensive – Bad Design Is

There’s a myth that hangs around corners of every budget meeting: good design is a luxury. Something you sprinkle on at the end, once the “real” work is done.

But if you’ve ever been through a costly product overhaul, a website relaunch, or a rebrand meant to fix “misperceptions,” you know the truth. Fixing poor choices is far more expensive than making thoughtful ones in the first place.

The cycle of building something that doesn’t work, launching it, and then backtracking – that’s the expensive part. The part where no one wins. The part where teams get burnt out, brands get bruised, and leadership starts wondering if maybe their market has changed (it probably hasn’t – they just forgot to listen).

In contrast, investing in a clear, thoughtful experience from the start is the compass. It might mean slower beginnings. More questions. Less ego.

But the payoff? Fewer rewrites. Happier users. Quieter customer support queues. And more confidence in your decisions – not because they’re loud, but because they’re right.

Users Don’t Need to Be Wowed – Just Respected

There’s a clever little phrase I heard once: People don’t want faster horses. They want to get somewhere.

It’s easy to misread that as a call for disruption and brilliance – to create the next big thing.

But often, respect sits in the simple act of removal: of choosing not to waste your users’ time. To let them get to where they need to go, with the fewest obstacles.

That’s why great user experience isn’t always about delighting users. Sometimes, it’s about not annoying them. It’s about giving them back a sense of control. And of dignity.

The best experiences feel like they were built by someone we’d like. Someone who pays attention. Someone who, given the choice between three clicks and one, picks one – not to be clever, but to be kind.

It’s a kind of care that rarely shows up in line items or analytics dashboards. But people remember it. It ripples into conversations, reviews, and referrals.

And more quietly still, it turns into trust.

Design Scales Better Than You Think

There’s a beautiful thing about investing in better experiences: the value compounds.

A helpful onboarding flow today doesn’t just help one user – it helps every user. An intuitive dashboard saves time on every single visit. A clear email saves a thousand clarifying replies.

Design decisions, unlike many other investments, don’t just work once. They scale quietly and endlessly. They’re not locked to campaigns, product launches or fiscal calendars. They live in the fabric of your relationship with users – every button, every touchpoint, every moment.

What makes this even more powerful is that once a better experience is built, it becomes the standard others must meet. It doesn’t just help you compete – it helps you lead.

The Payoff You Can’t See on a Spreadsheet

There’s one kind of return no chart can quite capture: grace.

When your experience is effortless, people give you the benefit of the doubt. They forgive the odd delay. They don’t pounce on competitors offering a 5% discount. They stay.

Because deep down, they remember: when I needed something, you made it easy. When the world was noisy, you were quiet. When others made me feel stupid, you made me feel smart. Or capable. Or welcomed.

This is the kind of brand loyalty money can’t buy – but good experiences create.

Not with tricks. Not with gimmicks. But with paying attention. With caring. And with committing to always ask, “How would this feel if it were me?”

The Real Question: Would You Use This, Over and Over Again?

Here’s a question I often ask when assessing a design:

“If you weren’t paid to work on this, would you still choose to use it? Regularly?”

It’s a disarming one, especially for founders and product teams. Because deep down, we all know the answer. If we’d avoid our own creation out in the wild, so will others.

Design isn’t about making things look good. It’s about making things feel right. About building trust, not just traction. About creating quiet, delightful moments that say: “Someone thought about me.”

So, if you’re wondering where to invest next, don’t just look at features, or ad budgets, or the next big campaign.

Look at the crumbs. The clicks. The confused moments. The places friction lives but no one has called it out.

And invest there.

Because sometimes, a better toast tray really is the smartest decision you’ll ever make.