Designing without data? What to do when you're flying blind
What to say, what to ask, and what to track instead.
Hey, Miranda here 👋
I talk a lot about designers needing to show the “impact” of their design solutions. IE, what difference did your design make for the users and/or business?
And because of that, I’ve been getting a lot of messages like this recently:
“I don’t have access to metrics — how can I show the impact of my design work?”
This is a common challenge for designers, especially those working in low-UX maturity orgs, at early-stage startups, or in companies where data lives in silos.
You’re being asked to “improve the experience.”
But improve what, exactly?
Without insights, you’re guessing. That’s risky for everyone.
When you don’t have access to insights:
👎 You don’t know if your work made a difference
👎 You can’t prioritize what matters
👎 You can’t speak to impact in your portfolio or performance reviews
But here’s the thing: not having access to dashboards or KPIs doesn’t mean you can’t be strategic. It just means you need to be resourceful.
Let’s talk about how to navigate this — and still show you’re a designer who drives outcomes, not just output.
Don’t stay silent — ask to see the metrics
Too often, designers assume they’re not “senior enough” to ask about data. Or they don’t want to bother their PM or analyst. But asking smart questions is the job.
✅ Try asking:
“How do we plan to measure success for this feature or product area?”
“Do we know where users are dropping off in this flow?”
“Is there any feedback or behavior data I can look at before we jump into solutions?”
Or frame it this way:
“If I know what the business is trying to move — signups, retention, reduced support tickets — I can design in a way that supports those goals.”
This shifts the conversation from design = decoration to design = strategy.
Talk to the people who do have access
Data often lives with:
Product Managers
Analysts
Researchers
Customer Support or Success
You don’t need full access — you need collaboration.
✅ Try:
“I want to make sure this solves the right problem. Can you help me understand what users are struggling with based on the latest data?”
If the data exists somewhere, someone can help you interpret it. You just have to ask.
Use what is available
If your company doesn’t track detailed usage — or won’t give you access — you can still find insight in other ways:
📌 Try pulling from:
Customer support tickets
Sales team anecdotes
App store reviews
Social media complaints
Usability testing (even 3–5 participants!)
Stakeholder interviews
Then synthesize:
What are users confused by?
Where do they drop off?
What are they repeatedly asking for?
You don’t need 10,000 data points to find patterns.
When you’re truly left in the dark
Sometimes there’s no data, no support, no clarity — and no way around it.
Here’s what you can do:
Build your own mini-insights
Log friction points. Collect ad-hoc feedback. Keep track of qualitative patterns.Design your own experiments
Try usability testing, A/B testing if possible, or even informal pilot launches.Focus on the business goals that are known
Even in the absence of granular data, you can usually align with the company’s broader goals (e.g., customer retention, reduced costs, increased trust).Version your solutions
Can’t get buy-in to fix everything now? Frame your design as v1 with a plan for iteration once more data (or confidence) becomes available.
And when all else fails:
Document the intent behind your work
Even when you can’t measure the result directly, you can make a clear case for why your work matters.
Try language like:
“This redesign is intended to reduce friction during onboarding by clarifying the next step and limiting decision fatigue in order to improve adoption”
“This change aims to help users complete checkout faster by making payment options more visible in order to improve conversation.”
By grounding your decisions in intent — and tying that intent to business goals — you show strategic thinking. Even if you can’t yet show a chart to prove it.
I Challenge You:
This week, take 30 minutes to do one of the following:
Ask your PM or analyst what success metrics are tracked for your product area.
Set up a 15-minute convo with support to understand the biggest UX complaints.
Reword your latest design presentation to include intent statements like “this aims to increase/reduce ___.”
Start your own “insight log” with quotes, pain points, or patterns you’re noticing.
✨ Your job isn’t to have all the data. It’s to show you care about outcomes. And that starts with better questions.
Final Thought
You don’t always need a dashboard to be a strategic designer.
You need curiosity. Context. And a commitment to making design decisions that solve real problems — not just look good.
Show that you care about why your work matters, and you’ll stand out in all the right ways.
P.S. If you’ve found creative ways to show design impact without hard data, I’d love to hear them. Share what’s worked (or what hasn’t) in the comments.
P.S. A few more ways I can help you
I’ve created quite a few resources for UXers, take a look.
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