Impact Effort Matrix 🧮 Prompts

SUMMARY

Purpose: Help product teams prioritise design ideas and features based on impact and effort for maximum user value and delivery efficiency

Design Thinking Phase: Ideate

Time: 45–60 min session + 1–2 hours analysis

Difficulty: ⭐⭐

When to use:When you have a list of competing design opportunities or featuresWhile preparing a product roadmap or MVP scopeTo align stakeholders on what to tackle first in a cross-functional context

What it is

The Impact–Effort Matrix is a collaborative tool used to evaluate and prioritise initiatives based on their potential impact to users or business and the effort (time, cost, complexity) required to implement them. By plotting ideas on a 2×2 matrix, teams get a clear visual map of what to do now, later, or potentially park entirely.

📺 Video by NNgroup. Embedded for educational reference.

Why it matters

Design and product teams often generate many ideas—features, enhancements, or UX solutions—following discovery or ideation sessions. But not all ideas are equal in value or feasibility. The matrix helps teams apply strategic filters and make decisions objectively. It supports stakeholder alignment, prevents analysis paralysis, and speeds up go-to-market decisions by focusing on high-impact, low-effort options first.

When to use

• After ideation workshops to vet a backlog of UX opportunities
• During sprint planning to choose initiatives that deliver quick wins
• To evaluate legacy features for pruning or rework

Benefits

• Rich Insights: Helps uncover user needs that aren’t visible in metrics.
• Flexibility: Works across various project types and timelines.
• User Empathy: Deepens understanding of behaviours and motivations.

How to use it

• List all the candidate ideas, features, or UX improvements you want to evaluate.
• Define ‘impact’ in your context—this could be user satisfaction, engagement, business outcome, etc.
• Do the same for ‘effort’—consider tech lift, design complexity, risk, and dependencies.
• Plot each item on a 2x2 grid: High vs Low Impact on one axis, Low vs High Effort on the other.
• Segment your options into four categories: ‘Quick Wins’ (High Impact, Low Effort), ‘Major Projects’ (High Impact, High Effort), ‘Fill-ins’ (Low Impact, Low Effort), and ‘Deprioritise’ (Low Impact, High Effort).
• Discuss points of disagreement openly and calibrate based on user needs and product goals.
• Document final placements and decisions for later reference and stakeholder visibility.

Example Output

Quick Wins: Streamlined onboarding flow, typography hierarchy update

Major Projects: Mobile offline access, re-architecting profile management

Fill-ins: Footer microcopy fix, button size tweak for one device

Deprioritise: Feature to export user data in XML format (unused, complex)

Common Pitfalls

• Misaligned Definitions: Teams often have fuzzy or differing definitions of 'effort' or 'impact'. Get clear on both—before plotting.
• Bias Toward the Familiar: Ideas from senior voices or past success get unfair elevation. Make sure all ideas are assessed equally.
• Too Theoretical: The matrix is a decision aid, not gospel. Validate your scoring with user data or tech feasibility checks.

10 Design-Ready AI Prompts for Impact Effort Matrix – UX/UI Edition

How These Prompts Work (C.S.I.R. Framework)

Each of the templates below follows the C.S.I.R. method — a proven structure for writing clear, effective prompts that get better results from ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, or any other LLM.

C.S.I.R. stands for:

• Context: Who you are and the UX situation you're working in
• Specific Info: Key design inputs, tasks, or constraints the AI should consider
• Intent: What you want the AI to help you achieve
• Response Format: The structure or format you want the AI to return (e.g. checklist, table, journey map)

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Prompt Template 1: “Map Features onto Impact–Effort Quadrants”

Map Features onto Impact–Effort Quadrants

Context: You are a product designer facilitating prioritisation for a cross-functional team.  
Specific Info: You have a list of [15 features or UX improvements] from a recent discovery workshop. Criteria for impact include [user value, retention, NPS]; effort includes [engineering complexity and design scope].  
Intent: Sort features into four impact–effort quadrants.  
Response Format: Return a table with columns: Feature, Impact Score (1–5), Effort Score (1–5), Suggested Quadrant.

Ask questions if scoring criteria are unclear, or if definitions of "impact" or "effort" need refining. Suggest a way to visualise or present the matrix to stakeholders.