Recently I started a UX Research course with the Interaction Design Foundation, during the first couple of lessons they touch on ROI with ux design and why it’s important. This re-introduced me to a concept and rule I experience everyday - the 1:10:100. Articulated best in this article as:
The 1:10:100 rule for change, it will cost you $1 to do initial research, $10 to change your design and $100 to change your product.
As someone who produces digital products everyday I can tell you after almost fifteen years this is an incredibly helpful rule of thumb to use when navigating through any project. When your up against the trifecta of scope, budget, timeline and have to make quick decisions that will impact the success of a project, having a method to help determine how big a check your butt will have to write while looking into a dark void of unknowns is critical.
It can be used to asses project risk, reduce design/technical debt and avoid going down a path of bad ux design, beautifully illustrated with this meme:
There are a ton of scenarios we could dig into that would use this method to help make decisions. I find the best analogy for this (after watching entirely too much HGTV) is thinking about building a house. Coming up with a plan for the house involves a lot of people and highly skilled individuals but once the foundation is down and the house is build, it’s going to be so much more effort and investment to adjust the house after it’s build.
