I’m sure you’ve been on projects where everyone thinks they are on the same page, and that the end product you’ve built is going to be amazing… Only for the product to launch and have lacklustre performance internally, or out in the wild with actual customers, it turns out to be a bit of a dud.
There is usually a reason for that − overlooking user experience is one of those key oversights.
Effective user experience (UX) research and design are often overlooked in enterprise application development. This is because it's seen mostly as aesthetics, or as a cost, plus time burned on the project. But neglecting UX is not just a design issue − it is a business risk.
UX design, when it forms part of the organisation's development and product workflows, results in lower risk, a unified vision, as well as significant returns. According to Forrester Research, every dollar invested in UX brings $100 in return, equating to a 9 900% return on investment.
Counterproductive new builds
It’s common for major enterprises like banks or insurers to build façade applications on top of legacy systems to use them in new technologies/apps, or develop their own internal tools to avoid expensive third-party licensing.
Historically, these builds were driven by business leads and implemented directly by developers, without involving end-users or UX professionals.
But this approach has its flaws. Business leads may not fully understand end-user needs, and while developers excel at building software, they are not always equipped to design for usability. This leads to systems being built that are technically sound but expensive to support and frustrating to use.
Developers bring technical precision. UX professionals bring human insight.
These issues can manifest as increased call centre volumes, high training costs, poor adoption rates and duplicated work across teams.
Poor UX leads to inefficiencies, creating the need for lengthy manuals, workaround habits and disengaged users.
Take, for example, a business stakeholder requesting an internal “WhatsApp”. Developers may interpret this as a simple text-sending tool, omitting essential features like attachments or notifications, not due to negligence, but due to a lack of shared context.
For example, after investing in a unified UX for its software platforms, General Electric reported a 100% productivity gain in development teams and saved an estimated $30 million in the first year alone.
When design is an integrated, mature mechanism within software development, massive savings and returns can be seen.
Complementary perspectives drive better results
Developers tend to focus on what’s technically possible, while UX teams focus on what’s likely and usable, based on real human behaviour.
Rather than thinking about whether an app can handle millions of simultaneous video uploads, UX asks: What will users actually do, and how do we make that easy, intuitive and error-free? Moreover, is it possible to test and verify prior to developmentinvestment?
Business value emerges when these perspectives work in tandem. Developers bring technical precision. UX professionals bring human insight. Together, they reduce risk, align product design with real user behaviour and drive better business outcomes.
Design that pays for itself
In a recent engagement with a major financial services entity, our UX designers spotted a costly problem that had gone unnoticed for years. A form field, frequently filled out incorrectly, was causing cascading errors.
By simply reordering the form layout and preventing misunderstanding about the form field, error rates were drastically reduced, saving the business millions in operational costs.
This is not a one-off. According to Forrester Research, a well-designed user interface could raise a website’s conversion rate by up to 200%, and a better UX design could yield conversion rates up to 400%.
UX is not about perfection or delay. It’s about validation before costly mistakes: lightweight design sprints, mock-up screens, test with real users and make iterative improvements − before the code is written. Once a solution is confirmed as usable, it moves into development with confidence.
This process significantly reduces rework, ensures alignment with business goals and accelerates time-to-value. For instance, addressing usability issues during the design phase can reduce the cost of those fixes by 60% to 90%.
UX teams should collaborate with business leaders, developers and end-users, and observe actual workflows, uncover hidden friction and bring design recommendations that are grounded in user behaviour, not assumptions.
This process helps ensure that:
- The right problems are being solved.
- The design is intuitive and aligns with business needs.
- All user types are accounted for.
- Validation happens before development, not after go-live.
When UX is integrated into agile workflows from day one, ultimately, enterprises gain faster iteration, fewer support calls and stronger alignment between user needs and business strategy.
So, what can you do to improve your software lifecycle? UX is not just a design concern − it’s a strategic asset. To begin realising the value of UX, business leaders should consider:
- Conducting a UX audit of existing enterprise systems to uncover usability issues and process inefficiencies.
- Embedding UX designers in agile teams to collaborate alongside developers from the start.
- Hiring UX consultants or building internal capacity to drive research, validation and design excellence.
- Setting performance indicators around user satisfaction, task completion time and support ticket reduction to measure UX success.
Enterprises that prioritise UX don’t just build better software − they create better outcomes, at lower cost, and with greater speed.
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