UX metrics in business

UX metrics are the indicators that indicate whether a user experience is working or not. The use of these metrics is essential to follow the evolutions of the product and to compare them. They are also used to set objectives and indicators of success.

Although most companies track metrics such as conversion rate, they often don't link these metrics to changes in design. The reason ? Their measurements do not take into account all the influencing factors. A change in the conversion rate can be linked to a design change, a promotion or even an action by a competitor. 

In this article we will talk about how to integrate UX metrics into key business monitoring indicators. 

# AVOID CERTAIN MISTAKES

The data available from A/B tests or satisfaction surveys does not always provide information on the user experience. 

The easiest data to track doesn't always show what really matters. For example, the number of page views is easy to collect, but says little about the user's experience with the product. 

Indicators can be ambiguous. Let's take the example of time spent on a site. If it is long, we could consider it as positive thinking that the user likes the product and therefore spends time on it. However, it can also be negative and mean that the user felt confused or frustrated. 

The evolution of an indicator is not necessarily linked to UX. Maybe after launching a new feature, the traffic starts to increase. The Product Owner might think it's due to the new feature, Sales might associate it with announcing a new promotion, and the UX team might assume it's related to a new design. 

Beware of the abundance of measurable data. Analytics tools can track hundreds of data and are infinitely customizable. It's tempting to measure everything and hope that conclusions will emerge on their own, but that's usually not the case.

# USING UX METRICS TO POWER THREE OF THE MOST USED INDICATORS IN BUSINESS

1. Usability

To measure usability, we focus on how easily users can accomplish what they set out to do.  

Here are some examples of indicators used to assess the usability of a product or service: 

  • The time spent on a task
  • The success rate of a task, 
  • Evaluating an element's usability 
  • Navigation
  • Difficulties encountered during the course 
  • Cue recognition (recognition of icons, interaction types, etc.)
  • Recording behaviors such as confusion, hesitation or frustration.

2. The Commitment

Engagement is often associated only with engagement rate. This is a widely followed indicator for most products. 

It is generally used by marketing teams. However, some UX metrics can complement engagement rate data by: 

  • Providing information about how users feel about an interaction or a step in the journey
  • Measuring the acceptable time for a user before abandoning a task
  • Collecting a user's first impression when they arrive at a site or use a product
  • Combining the time spent on a page with the number of pages viewed, the number of actions taken, the number of scrolls taken etc.

3. Conversion, or probability of conversion

The conversion rate is the metric most businesses care about. 

Le Conversion rate corresponds to percentage visitors to a site or application who perform a desired action. For example, the percentage visitors who purchase a product or service, register for a program or download a catalog.

However, using only the conversion rate in the conversion calculation means that we are not interested in people who, for example, are just starting to know the site or who are planning to engage more. 

It is possible to complete the conversion indicator by using UX metrics to, for example, assess the likelihood that users will engage by focusing on key moments in the user journey.

4. Use meaningful indicators

It is important to note that it is not mandatory to use all the metrics stated above to evaluate the UX of a product. The key is to select the metrics that will make the most sense in your context and according to the amount of data you will be able to collect. 

Nevertheless, it is more relevant today to use indicators that rely on several metrics in order to provide more value. 

To obtain a good UX indicator, it is generally essential to combine interactions and emotions (or perception). Indeed, interactions give you information about what users do (click, scroll, fill out a form, etc.) while emotions give you information about what users think of the experience and how it feel it. Interactions and emotions complement each other to become more meaningful. 

Conclusion

Engagement and conversion are highly monitored indicators in business. UX Design can now help complete these indicators with UX metrics. 

The UX metrics that can be collected are numerous and must be selected according to the product context in order to be used on the one hand to evaluate the usability of a product or service but also to feed the indicators of success. more global aspects of a company. Measuring the right thing is helping to change the relationship between a user and a product. 

Make sense of what you're measuring and help fuel a business success metric, helping organizations understand the impact of UX Design and the importance of user focus. 

 

Charlotte BARBE – UX Designer @UX-Republic

 

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