The relationship between Product Managers and UX Designers is a delicate dance—when done well, it’s like a well-rehearsed duet, each complementing the other’s moves. When done poorly, it’s like trying to waltz while stepping on each other’s feet.
Both roles are critical to delivering a seamless, user-centric product. A PM ensures that business goals, technical feasibility, and market needs align, while UX translates those needs into an experience that users actually enjoy. However, misalignment in expectations, communication, and decision-making can create unnecessary friction.
Let’s walk through how PMs and UX can work together to redesign a complex onboarding workflow at Coinbase, turning prospective users into paying customers, without stepping on each other’s toes.
Shared Goal: Fixing a Complicated Coinbase Onboarding Flow
Coinbase’s onboarding process is critical to its success—without a smooth experience, users may abandon their accounts before ever making their first deposit. Imagine that data shows sign-up completion rates have dropped by 12% over the last quarter.
PMs and UX are tasked with fixing it. How can they collaborate effectively?
1. Aligning on the Problem Without Overstepping
Both PMs and UX Designers share the same goal: solving user pain points while driving business success. However, a common challenge is defining the problem in a way that allows both teams to contribute their expertise.
👉 What Doesn’t Work:
A PM saying, “The design needs to be more engaging—let’s make the sign-up button bigger and add some animations.” While well-intentioned, this focuses on a specific design solution rather than defining the problem.
👉 What Works:
A PM saying, “Our data shows a 12% drop in sign-up completions, particularly at the identity verification step. Let’s figure out why users are dropping off and find a way to improve conversions.”
This approach invites UX to explore solutions creatively rather than prescribing a fix upfront.
🎯 How to Collaborate:
- PM provides: Business impact metrics, hypotheses based on data trends, and any constraints from compliance or engineering.
- UX provides: User behavior insights, usability testing results, and design iterations based on research.
Together, they ensure the problem is well-defined before jumping to solutions.
2. Creating Clear, Actionable Requirements
Now that the problem is clear, it’s time to refine what success looks like. Misalignment often happens when requirements are too vague, leading to unnecessary iterations.
👉 What Doesn’t Work:
A PM handing off a vague request like, “Make onboarding smoother.” This leaves UX guessing—does that mean reducing steps? Improving UI clarity? Adding tooltips?
👉 What Works:
A PM providing clear parameters: “We need to improve onboarding completion rates by 10% without increasing compliance risk. Can we explore ways to make identity verification feel more intuitive?”
🎯 How to Collaborate:
- PM provides: A well-defined problem statement and measurable success metrics.
- UX provides: Design explorations, user research insights, and usability testing plans.
Both parties should review and refine user stories and personas together so that UX isn’t just designing for aesthetics but solving a real, well-defined challenge.
3. Balancing Business Goals with User Needs
Sometimes, business priorities and user needs don’t perfectly align, which makes collaboration crucial. In our Coinbase example, UX may discover that requiring identity verification too early in the process creates friction, while compliance teams need it upfront for regulatory reasons.
👉 What Doesn’t Work:
UX saying, “This step is causing drop-offs, so let’s remove it.” while PM says, “Compliance says it stays.” This results in a standoff where both sides dig in.
👉 What Works:
PM and UX working together to find alternatives: “Is there a way to make verification feel less intimidating? Could we provide a preview of the platform before requiring verification?”
🎯 How to Collaborate:
- PM provides: Business and compliance constraints.
- UX provides: Alternatives that improve usability without compromising regulatory requirements.
- Both agree on: A solution that minimizes friction while ensuring legal and business goals are met.
4. Testing Solutions with Shared Ownership
Once UX creates a new onboarding flow, the next challenge is ensuring it works before committing to full development. PMs and UX teams should collaborate on a structured testing plan rather than treating design as a final handoff.
👉 What Doesn’t Work:
Rushing to ship the redesign without testing, leading to unknown risks and unintended consequences.
👉 What Works:
PMs and UX co-designing an A/B test to validate whether the new flow improves sign-up completion rates.
🎯 How to Collaborate:
- PM provides: Data tracking, success metrics, and experiment guardrails.
- UX provides: Usability testing insights and iterative improvements.
- Both agree on: A clear “go/no-go” threshold based on test results.
This ensures decisions are driven by data, not assumptions, making it easier to iterate quickly and gain stakeholder buy-in.
5. Learning from Launch and Iterating Together
Great collaboration doesn’t end at launch—it extends into post-launch analysis and iteration.
👉 What Doesn’t Work:
The PM measuring only business metrics (e.g., sign-ups increased) without considering how users feel about the change.
👉 What Works:
PMs and UX conducting a joint post-launch analysis to review:
✅ Did sign-ups increase? (PM’s metric)
✅ Did users find the process easier? (UX’s usability metric)
✅ Were there unintended friction points? (Both)
🎯 How to Collaborate:
- PM provides: Post-launch KPIs and revenue impact analysis.
- UX provides: Usability testing results and qualitative feedback.
- Both agree on: What to improve in the next iteration.
This shared learning approach ensures continuous improvement rather than one-off fixes.
The Best PMs and UX Designers Work as Partners
At its core, the PM-UX relationship isn’t about ownership—it’s about partnership. The best teams:
✔ Define problems together before jumping to solutions.
✔ Create clear, data-backed requirements that align user needs with business goals.
✔ Balance priorities collaboratively rather than engaging in a tug-of-war.
✔ Test and iterate as a team, ensuring decisions are data-driven.
When done right, PMs don’t just “hand off” work to UX—they create the conditions for great design to happen. And in return, UX doesn’t just “make things look nice”—they help shape products that users actually love.
Want to master cross-functional collaboration and talk about PM-UX teamwork like a pro in your next interview?
Book a coaching session with Kalena Advisors and learn how to stand out as a strategic, user-focused PM.