From Features to Outcomes: How to Design What Really Matters

“More Features” Aren’t Always Better

New clients often say to us, “We just need X feature.” That’s because product teams love talking about features. They feel familiar, concrete, visible, and easy to document on a roadmap. Churning out new features can feel like progress.

But great products aren’t built by just stacking features one on top of another. That’s the wrong starting point, because it skips over the most important question you need to ask to design great products:

What outcomes are we trying to create for both users and our business?

When you anchor your team’s efforts to outcomes, your designs are cleaner, your roadmaps are better defined, and your products become drastically more valuable. When you’re not focused on outcomes, you end up shipping features that look productive but do little to actually move the needle.

Let’s explore why you need to shift your product thinking away from a feature-first mindset to an outcomes-based approach, and how that will lead your team to make better decisions and achieve longer-lasting results.

The Trap of a Feature-First Mindset

New feature requests are seductive. When we get in front of users for UX research or testing, we often ask what works or doesn’t work for them. We’re often fishing for how to fix existing features, or create new ones, that will deliver delight and make things easier to do.

There’s nothing wrong with that. In the amorphous world of digital product design, features feel tangible. They’re easy to discuss and they make us feel like we’re making progress.

But when you put features at the center of your product development, you run the risk of diluting the core value of your product or service and racking up UX debt.

That’s because features are not inherently valuable, but outcomes are.

When teams fixate on features:

• Product complexity grows faster than product clarity.

• Users get more options, but not necessarily more value.

• Roadmaps bloat with features that only serve edge cases or respond to internal assumptions.

• Teams chase parity with competitors instead of purpose.

• The core experience becomes harder to navigate and maintain.

It’s relatively easy to create more “stuff.” It’s infinitely more complicated, and takes more time and attention to detail, to design and develop the right stuff.

The Power of an Outcome-First Mindset: Focus on Value, Not Volume

Outcome-first thinking seeks to understand what success looks like before deciding what to build. It’s a constant process of resisting the urge to build new features until you’re sure those features will create real outcomes.

Here are some key questions that help re-center your work from features to outcomes:

• What is the user actually trying to achieve and where are they currently stuck?

• What experience would make them feel confident, clear, and in control?

• What change in user behavior would signal success?

• Where does the business need to see improvement?

When the team understands why they’re building something, the what becomes clearer. This doesn’t mean you have to build fewer features. It means you can build smarter features that have a clear purpose, make a measurable impact, and are directly connected to user goals.

These aren’t easy answers, and they will likely lead to lively debates. That’s the point. Thoughtful UX design is more important than ever so you want your team to have these deeper conversations.

We’re not here to just build features. We’re also not here to say that features don’t matter. We’re here to help clients stop wasting their time and resources.

Healthy conversations about what will drive outcomes help you develop a product that delivers real value.

Real-World Products That Win on Outcomes

Some will say that outcome-based thinking is nice to have, but we have a product to build. It can feel very theoretical.

Some of the most beloved products succeed because they focus relentlessly on outcomes rather than surface-level functionality.

Here are just a few examples:

Spotify: “Help me discover music I love.”

Spotify has plenty of core filter and search features that help its users find specific music they already love. But music lovers also want to find new music.

The Discover Weekly feature isn’t packed with controls, custom filters, or complex personalization widgets. It focuses on delivering a simple and clear outcome: new music it thinks you’ll love.

It works because it gives users the opportunity to effortlessly expand their love of music, while also keeping them in the app.

TurboTax: “Help me file my taxes with confidence.”

We’ve used this example (and had clients cite it to us) countless times through the years. That’s because TurboTax doesn’t just offer forms or tools. It guides users step-by-step through a complex and convoluted process to complete their taxes.

Instead of overwhelming users with every form at once, it reduces cognitive load and offers reassurance at key moments. The outcome drives the experience, even as new features have been added through the years.

Google Search: “Help me find the right information fast.”

Talk about a product that historically hasn’t tacked on tons of features. Google facilitates countless searches every hour, yet the interface is almost invisible. It still prioritizes speed and relevance over UI complexity or feature bloat.

New features like ads and sponsored results, or map integrations and other app connections are always optimized for speed, clarity, and relevance. The outcome is the experience.

Notion Templates: “Help me feel organized quickly.”

Notion could have built dozens of features for task management. Instead, they introduced templates and pre-built structures that guide users directly through a clear and structured workflow.

As these examples show, users don’t need 50 new features. They need results they can count on.

How to Make the Shift from Features to Outcomes

To move your team from feature-first to outcome-first product thinking you don’t need a complete overhaul of your process or organizational structure. You just need a new lens that helps you clarify why you’re building something before deciding what it should be.

Here’s how to make the shift:

1. Clearly define your desired outcomes

Start by articulating:

• What is the user trying to accomplish?

• What do they need to feel (clarity, confidence, momentum, safety)?

• How will you know they’ve achieved it?

• What business value does their success enable?

When you skip this step, your features become nothing much more than guesses.

2. Identify the signals and metrics that matter

Move away from tracking feature usage (“How often did they click it?”) and toward evidence of actual value (“What did they accomplish with it?”).

Pay attention to metrics like:

• Completion rates

• Reduced support tickets

• Faster onboarding

• Higher task success

• Lower cognitive load

• Stronger retention

These signal whether you’ve delivered your intended outcome, not just whether you shipped something new.

3. Create multiple paths to success

When your product team understands your desired outcome, a surprising thing happens. You stop creating one-off solutions to specific problems, and start crafting multiple avenues to success.

Your product starts becoming more nimble. Whether it’s offering better defaults, crafting a clearer user flow, improving copy, or maybe even killing a feature or two, your team will get more creative and stop settling for easy answers.

An outcome-focused product generates success in new and exciting ways.

4. Validate whether the solution delivers your desired outcome

In an outcome-based mindset, a feature is only successful if it changes the user experience the way you intended and delivers the outcome users need.

Test new features repeatedly with users to find out:

• Did they reach the outcome faster and with more confidence?

• Did it reduce friction or confusion for them?

• Did it improve the metrics we aligned on earlier that show success?

Outcome-focused product teams measure outcomes directly. It’s not enough to settle for feeling proud that you launched a feature or even that it’s being used. Find evidence that it truly delivers something meaningful.

Outcome-First Design Delivers Clarity

We create meaningful experiences at Drawbackwards by sticking to our core principles of focusing on user goals to reduce friction and understanding outcomes, not just adding more options.

That’s how we’ve delivered ROI and business success for clients over the last two decades-plus. Our focus on outcomes has helped teams iterate faster, accumulate less UX debt, and deliver usable products that drive loyalty.

Your team doesn’t need more features to create impact. It needs a stronger reason to build the features that users really need.

When teams start with outcomes:

• They build with more intention.

• They align more easily around meaningful priorities.

• They reduce UX debt instead of creating it.

• They make decisions that actually improve people’s lives and advance the business.

Before adding that new feature to your roadmap, pause and ask:

• Why are we building this?

• What outcome are we trying to help users achieve?

• Is this the simplest, clearest way to deliver that outcome?

If you want support clarifying outcomes, prioritizing the right work, or untangling a feature-heavy roadmap, Drawbackwards can help.

Let’s rethink what success looks like and build products together that create outcomes worth talking about.