Your company just announced another OKR cycle. Leadership wants everyone's objectives by Friday.
You stare at a blank document.
"Deliver great design" isn't going to cut it. You know that. But what actually counts as a design OKR?
I've been here. At Apple, EA, USAA, Nestlé—every company does OKRs differently, but designers face the same problem everywhere: how do you measure something everyone says is subjective?
What Not to Do
These are real OKRs I've seen. I've written some of them:
- Objective: Improve design quality → KR: Complete 10 design reviews
- Objective: Enhance user experience → KR: Conduct 5 usability tests
These measure activity. Nobody cares how many reviews you completed. They care whether the product got better in ways that affect the business.
What Works
Objective: Make it easier for customers to complete [specific task]
- KR: Reduce task completion time from 4 minutes to under 2 minutes
- KR: Increase task success rate from 72% to 90%
- KR: Decrease support tickets related to [task] by 30%
Objective: Build stakeholder confidence in design decisions
- KR: Reduce design revision requests post-handoff by 40%
- KR: Increase first-presentation approval rate from 50% to 75%
- KR: Zero escalations to VP level for design disagreements
Notice what these have in common: they tie design work to outcomes business partners already measure.
The POKR Framework
When I struggled with this at Apple, I added something to standard OKRs: Perspectives.
POKR forces you to think beyond just business metrics:
- Credibility — Internal trust in design
- Impact — Business outcomes
- Usability — User success
- Detectability — Can users find what they need?
Most design teams only write OKRs for Impact and ignore the rest. But Credibility matters—if stakeholders don't trust you, they won't let you do the work that creates Impact.
Write Design OKRs in 30 Minutes
Step 1: List your company's top 3-5 business metrics. What does leadership talk about? (5 min)
Step 2: For each metric, identify design's potential influence. Revenue → checkout flow. Retention → onboarding experience. (10 min)
Step 3: Pick 1-2 where design changes are planned this quarter. (5 min)
Step 4: Write measurable KRs using baseline → target. (10 min)
Done.
Why This Matters
You're not reading this because you love goal-setting frameworks.
You're reading this because you're tired of being asked "what does design actually do?" You want an answer that makes executives nod instead of squint.
Good OKRs translate design work into language business partners speak. When you speak their language consistently, something shifts. You stop being the team that makes things pretty. You become the team that moves numbers.
That's when you get invited to the meetings where strategy happens.
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