When we talk about design impact, we are really talking about alignment. I hear this consistently from you in my exchanges: you want your work to matter to the business.
An initiative touches product, design, engineering, risk, and leadership, and the question becomes simple: did this work help the business move forward, and how do we know?
In the next year, this is going to get messier with AI:
- Agents act.
- People will intervene.
- Decisions start to blur together.
- And the ownership will get fuzzy.
So UX metrics give us a fast, consistent way to evaluate our outputs and make sense of this chaos.
What is not confusing is this: people align with people who help the business succeed. If you can consistently show how your work connects to outcomes, people listen. Over time, they trust your judgment.
That is where UX metrics come in.
Start with a concrete example
Letâs look at notification settings in the financial app Robinhood.
Before jumping to metrics, start with a hunch grounded in user need.
As a trader managing notifications, some needs tend to show up quickly. Not all of these need to be explicit, and you may only focus on one or two. But you do need to agree on what matters.
For example:
Notification options should be easy to understand, easy to toggle, and easy to customize without confusion.
In Glare terms, that maps to Usable.
Pick the UX metrics that help you decide
Now we choose metrics that help us understand whether the experience actually supports that need.
For Robinhoodâs notification center, the goal is not to measure everything. It is to get a clear picture that helps us decide what to fix, keep, or revisit.
You could choose one metric. You could choose five. The point is usefulness, not coverage.
For this example, we start with Usability
Usability asks a simple question: can people operate this without friction?
Users should be able to browse, filter, and manage notifications smoothly. The metric tells us whether they can navigate the structure and controls without hesitation or confusion.
Turn the hunch into testable questions
The hunch here is that the full-screen takeover shown when entering notification settings may feel abrupt or unclear. Users might expect a detailed settings page, not a binary prompt.
To test that, we need questions that surface behavior and confidence, not opinions in the abstract.
Examples:
- How clear was it why this notification prompt appeared at this moment?
- How realistic or trustworthy did the example notifications feel?
- How comfortable did you feel choosing between the options on this screen?
These questions help us understand whether users know where they are, what they are being asked to do, and what to do next.
Measure behavior, not just sentiment
For usability, we used a multi-task click test.
Participants were asked things like:
- Where would you tap to turn off marketing notifications?
- Where would you tap to manage push alerts for portfolio updates?
Success is averaged across tasks to produce a usability score.
In this case, Helio was used to collect the data using the built-in Usability metric. The raw survey and UX for Robinhoodâs notification center are available if you want to inspect the details.
Findings: What the metric showed
Usability: 84% (Good)
Participants found the layout clear and easy to operate. The structure of push, email, and message notifications felt intuitive. Most users could locate the settings they needed with minimal hesitation.
On its own, that sounds like a win.
Why one metric is not enough
When we look at usability alongside the other metrics, a more nuanced picture emerges. Robinhood built a notification framework that users understand and want to personalize. Comprehension is high. Intent is high.
But lower success and sentiment scores point to friction under the surface. Nested menus, unclear category labels, or a weak hierarchy between push, email, and message alerts may be slowing people down.
This creates a useful tension.
Users feel aligned with the system at a mental level, but small interaction issues get in the way of smooth execution. That tension is exactly where good design decisions live.
And that is the real value of a UX metric. It does not declare success or failure. It gives you evidence to decide what to do next.
What does it mean? Design Signals
Users know how to manage notifications, but they are less clear on why they should receive certain alerts and what impact those alerts will have. The interface gives control, but little guidance.
*Design Signal-Notification settings should help users decide what deserves attention.
The system is configurable. The meaning is thinner.
Participants expressed their thoughts about the notifications:
âHave to read through details to understandâŠnot easy.â
âIt looks like there are two different ways that each item is showing, the toggle switch and then the arrow option to go to another screen. Shouldnât they all look the same for it to be more uniform and clear?.â
What to Do Instead
This is where a good team designs notification centers around priority and consequence, not just flexibility.
They:
- Explain why an alert exists before asking users to enable it.
- Clarify what action, if any, a notification supports.
- Group alerts by importance, not just category.
- Reinforce which notifications protect users versus which simply inform.
Instead of asking: âCan users manage notifications?â We should be asking if users:
- âDo users understand which alerts matter most?â
- âDoes this setup reduce anxiety or increase it?â
- âAre we helping users stay informed, or just stay interrupted?â
You can now make more informed recommendations based on the UX metrics you collected!
