I worked with a designer that actually told me this un-sarcastically. "My KPI is signups, not logins. Bury the login link. Existing users don't move the metric."
Metrics-based and KPI-based software development has ruined quality for decades.
Reminds me of those explorers who paid the natives for every dinosaur bone they turned in, only to be horrified when they realized the natives were breaking the bones into as many pieces as possible to collect as much currency as possible.
This is what happens when you strongly tie promotions to metrics. Make sure you have the right ones, or don't do it. Left to his own devices, the designer would probably have done the right thing. It takes a bad incentive to make someone do something like this.
Metrics-based and KPI-based software development has ruined quality for decades.