Though design thinking has undoubtedly captured the
attention of the business world, return on investment (ROI) is still the
elephant in the room. Designers are often at pains to point out that many of
the subjective benefits of design are difficult to quantify – so they don’t
bother. Businesses, on the other hand,
ignore the benefits of design on the basis that “if it can’t be measured it
doesn’t exist”. Personally, I’m a strong
believer in combining the insight of qualitative data with the rigour of quantitative
data.
I was thinking about the ROI for design recently when a blog
posting by Bart Doorneweert pointed out the British Design Council’s Report “Design
Index: The Impact of Design on Stock Market Performance”. The report shows that businesses which
invested in design consistently outperformed their peers. The report looks at a
decade’s worth of data between 1994-2004, and shows that design-led companies outperformed
the FTSE 100 index by as much as 200 per cent. What’s also interesting to note
is that the results are consistent in both bull and bear markets.
The Sharing Experience Europe (SEE) network has put together a useful resource for businesses wishing to evaluate the impact of design. The SEE Policy Booklet No. 3 evaluates the impact of design impact on: Companies; National Industry; Programmes & Policies, and Economy & Society.
Another promising piece of research is the Design ROI tool
which is a collaboration between the Finish Design Business Association (FDBA) in
collaboration with academics from the Aalto University in Helsinki. The tool aims
to measure and predict the financial outcomes of design and could be
particularly useful for SMEs wishing to quantify the impact of design
investments.
by Andrew Pope
Further Reading
Design and Firm Performance
Evaluating Design
Impact of Design on Stock Market Performance
Design ROI
