Does UX really matter that much?

Marianne Van den Ende
Jun 4
2 min read

Let’s talk about UX. Or is it UI? Or maybe CX? Or SIGs?Honestly, there are so many of these terms floating around that even people working in digital teams often use them interchangeably. And to be fair ... they’re not interchangeable.

Each has its own focus, its own application, and I know professionals who’ve built their entire careers around just one of them.

But what I want to zoom in on here is UX: user experience. Or at least, I think that’s what I’m talking about. Even I question whether I’m always using the term properly.

The Tool That Sparked This Thought

A while ago, we had a back-end tool that our marketing team used. It technically worked, but it was clearly built by developers, for developers. The UI was rough. The structure didn’t make sense unless you already knew the system. So we brought in someone specialized in UI to help clean it up.

It was a helpful upgrade. But it made me wonder:

Does it really matter that much?

I don’t mean that sarcastically. I mean it practically.

If the Product Is Good… Is That Enough?

If your product is strong (truly valuable, unique, and clear in its purpose) will bad UX actually stop people from using it?

Take a very simple example:I regularly use a website that lets me convert PDFs to Word, or PNGs to SVGs. It's ugly. Really. There are ads everywhere, and the design looks straight out of 1999. But… it works. And the results are great.

So here’s the question: Would better UX actually matter here?Would it increase conversion? Would it attract more users? Maybe. But also:

Is the improvement worth the cost?

Because doing UX well isn’t cheap or easy. It’s not just design tweaks. It’s data, research, testing, iteration, implementation. You need:

User behavior analytics
Growth experiments and hypotheses
A/B testing tools
Development time and budget
Clear conversion goals to optimize for

If all that gets you a 1% lift in conversion… is it worth it? Or would that investment be better spent improving the product itself?

Not All UX Improvements Are Equal

Let’s be clear: I’m not talking about fixing broken things. If users can’t find your checkout button, if your site crashes on mobile, if your search doesn’t return relevant results ... yes, absolutely fix those. That’s basic usability.

I’m talking about the marginal UX upgrades. Changing button colors. Adjusting navigation structure. Swapping icons.These things matter, but only up to a point.

Once your UX is good enough - functional, clear, friction-light - the returns on further tweaks start to diminish.Yes, you could spend weeks redesigning your navigation. But will that effort bring in more value than, say, adding a feature your customers keep asking for?