In open beta — $100/month flat for your whole team See pricing →
OKR template

Design OKR examples

This is a free design OKR template with 2 objectives, 6 key results, and 8 starter initiatives you can copy. Whether people can finish the job the interface promises — measured on completion, time, and rework, not on screens delivered. It is written for Seed, Series A and Growth companies.

  • 2 objectives
  • 6 key results
  • Seed
  • Series A
  • Growth

What does a design OKR look like?

Copy these as they are and edit the numbers to your own baselines. The objective is the outcome you want to be true by the end of the quarter; the key results are how you will know it happened; the initiatives are the bets you are making to get there.

Objective 1 Operational

Make the core job something people finish without help

The annual goal is a product a new team can adopt without a call. This quarter is the first slice: the core job gets finished unaided, and the support tickets the interface generates go down instead of up.

KR 1.1 Headline

Finished the core task on the first try 46% → 70% of the sessions that start it

How it is measured: Sessions that finish the core task without abandoning, over sessions that start it

Baseline: 46% · Target: 70%

Initiatives

  • Watch 8 first-time sessions end to end and write down where each one stalls
  • Cut the core flow to the steps someone can give a reason for
KR 1.2

Median time to finish the core task 11 minutes → 4 minutes

How it is measured: Median minutes from starting the core task to finishing it

Baseline: 11 minutes · Target: 4 minutes

Initiatives

  • Remove every form field nobody downstream can name a use for
KR 1.3

Tickets caused by a confusing screen 34% → 15% of the tickets opened this quarter

How it is measured: Support tickets whose cause is the interface, over tickets opened

Baseline: 34% · Target: 15%

Initiatives

  • Tag every ticket with the screen it came from and review the top three each Friday
Objective 2 Operational

Give the product one visual language instead of five

Design debt is an efficiency problem, not a taste problem: every one-off component is a thing to build twice and fix twice. The annual goal is one system the whole product is drawn from; this quarter cuts the rework and the design-to-build cycle time it costs us today.

KR 2.1 Headline

Screens drawn only from the shared component set 38% → 85% of the screens in the product

How it is measured: Product screens with no one-off components, over all screens in the product

Baseline: 38% · Target: 85%

Initiatives

  • Inventory every one-off component and merge the duplicates into one
  • Give each shared component a written rule for when to use it
KR 2.2

Days from design handoff to merged code 12 → 5

How it is measured: Median days between a design being handed off and the build merging

Baseline: 12 days · Target: 5 days

Initiatives

  • Hand off with component names in the file instead of screenshots
KR 2.3

Design changes reopened after the build started 41% → 12% of the handoffs this quarter

How it is measured: Handoffs sent back for rework once the build started, over handoffs this quarter

Baseline: 41% · Target: 12%

Initiatives

  • Review every reopened handoff on Friday and name the decision that was missing

Why are these key results written this way?

Every example above passes the same quality rubric Hespia grades real OKRs against. Four rules do most of the work, and they are worth keeping when you edit the numbers:

  1. The objective has no number in it

    An objective is a qualitative state of the world you want to be true. The number belongs one level down, on the key result. An objective with a metric in the title is really a key result that lost its parent.

  2. Every key result shows a baseline, not just a target

    "Finished the core task on the first try 46% → 70% of the sessions that start it" is readable at a glance because the movement is visible. A target with no starting number cannot be paced weekly, so nobody can tell in week 4 whether it is slipping.

  3. Every ratio names a denominator the team cannot shrink

    "Of the accounts that started the quarter" is a fixed denominator. "Of active accounts" is not — the definition of active can move, and the percentage improves without anything real changing.

  4. Enabling work sits in initiatives, not in key results

    "Launch the new onboarding" is work; "activation in week one from 31% to 45%" is the result the work is meant to produce. Shipping the project is not the same as the outcome arriving, so the two live at different levels.

A template remembers. It doesn't chase.

Copied into a doc, these 6 key results depend on someone reopening the doc every week. Hespia seeds this exact board in one click, then reads pace on every key result weekly, flags what is slipping in week 4 instead of week 13, and writes the digest nobody wants to write. $100/month flat, whole team included.

Get started

Design OKR questions

What are good design OKRs?

Good design OKRs pair a qualitative objective with key results that each carry a number. In this template the objectives are "Make the core job something people finish without help" and "Give the product one visual language instead of five", and every key result underneath states the metric, where it starts, and where it needs to land — for example "Finished the core task on the first try 46% → 70% of the sessions that start it". If a key result has no starting number, it is a task rather than a key result.

How many key results should a design team have?

Three to five key results per objective, and no more than two or three objectives per team in a quarter. This template uses 2 objectives and 6 key results in total, which is a realistic quarter for one team. More than that and the weekly check-in stops fitting in fifteen minutes, which is how the ritual dies.

Are these design OKR examples free to use?

Yes. Every objective, key result, and initiative on this page is free to copy into any doc, spreadsheet, or goal tool, with no signup and no email. Hespia, the AI mentor that tracks weekly pace on each of these key results and chases the owners, is $100/month flat for the whole team.

Why does every key result here name its denominator?

Because a ratio without a stated denominator can be improved by shrinking the bottom number instead of growing the top one. A team that reports "percentage of active accounts" can quietly redefine "active" and post a win it did not earn. Every percentage in this template names a denominator the team cannot move, such as the accounts that started the quarter.

More OKR templates

UX research OKR examples

Decisions made on fresh customer evidence instead of the loudest opinion — and usability problems caught before they ship, not after.

Company and founder OKR examples

The two goals a founder-led company runs on: win the segment you chose, and make the business predictable enough to plan a year around.

Engineering OKR examples

Delivery and reliability as outcomes, not story points: how fast a change reaches customers, and how rarely it hurts them.

Engineering quality and tech debt OKR examples

Bugs found before customers find them, and the accumulated debt that taxes every change — paid down where it slows you most.

← All OKR templates