How Design Drives Real Business Growth with Renuka Lakra, Senior UX Designer at [cognition]

In this episode of [radically candid], host Ava Hinds sits down with Renuka Lakra, Senior UX Designer at [cognition], for a conversation about why design is one of the most undervalued growth levers in business. Renuka shares her perspective on how great UX closes the gap between a product and the people using it, why function always comes before aesthetics, and how a single design decision can move millions in revenue.Who's This Conversation For? This conversation is for startup founders who want to understand how design drives real business outcomes, anyone building or managing a software product who wants to invest in UX the right way, and designers looking for language to advocate for the strategic value of their work.What You'll Learn By Listening1. UX Design Is Function Before Aesthetics Renuka reframes what UX design actually is and why it belongs at the start of the software development process, not the end. A product is a tool, not a piece of art, and if it doesn't function the way users expect, no amount of visual polish will save it.Learn why the word "design" creates confusion and why terms like UX strategy or UX architecture better communicate what the work really involves.2. Empathy Is the Designer's Most Important Tool Renuka walks through two everyday examples, Gmail's forgotten-attachment reminder and Canva's template library, to show how the best products anticipate user needs before users even realize them.Gmail isn't showing you a beautiful screen when it catches a missing attachment. It's preventing a mistake and building trust. Canva's templates aren't there to look pretty, they're there to remove the paralysis of a blank page so someone with zero design skills can produce professional work in five minutes.3. One Design Decision That Doubled Airbnb's Revenue In 2009, Airbnb was nearly dead at $200 a week. The founders flew to New York, knocked on doors, and found the problem, terrible listing photos. They rented a camera, took professional shots, and revenue doubled in a single week.Same platform, same listings, same city. Just better photos. From 2010 to 2012, bookings went from almost nothing to nearly 5 million nights. 4. Amazon's One-Click Checkout and 300% Conversion Lift People already knew what they wanted to buy. The problem was the checkout process had too many steps, and that's exactly where the drop-off was happening. Amazon reduced the entire flow to one click.Conversion rates went from 2.5% to over 10%. More people who wanted to buy something actually completed the purchase.5. Give Designers Goals, Not Tasks Give your UX designer a North Star goal, not a feature to design. Make them part of your product strategy and let them understand your business.Airbnb's goal was to increase bookings. Spotify's goal was to keep users listening longer. Duolingo's goal was to bring users back every day. None of those are feature requests. They're real business problems, and that's exactly where design should start.6. Dark Design and Why Values Come First Renuka opens up about dark design patterns, the manipulative UX tactics some companies use to make it harder for users to cancel, unsubscribe, or leave. If your values don't align with designing against the user, don't do it. As a UX designer, Renuka's stance is clear: she advocates for users, always.Connect with Renuka Lakra on LinkedIn here!