This week I’ve been thinking a lot about lead and lag indicators in design.
Whether you floss is a good lead indicator of the health of your teeth. How many fillings you have is a lag indicator.
How many enquiries I have in my business is a lead indicator for revenue. What I end up invoicing is a lag indicator.
Lead indicators are predictors. You can influence them, but they aren’t guarantees. Lag indicators tell us what happened. You can’t change them, but you can learn from them.
We need both in design.
I have many fillings — that’s my lag indicator telling me I didn’t look after my teeth well enough in the past. I now floss — that’s my lead indicator suggesting I’ll still be smiling about my teeth in the future.