Top 5 UX Design Metrics to Track

Brands want to give their customers the best possible user experience (UX). But how can you be sure your UX approach is the right one and your customers are happy?

Customer metrics in UX design help quantify the user experience and act as a guide as you work towards improvement.

What is UX design?

According to Don Norman and Jakob Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman Group, the user experience “includes all aspects of the end user’s interaction with the company, its services and products.”

UX design is separate from usability, but the two are related. Usability is one of the quality indicators he focuses on whether a system is efficient and easy to learn. User experience is a broader measure of how users interact with your design and whether that experience provides what they want. UX design is the process that design teams use to deliver meaningful and relevant experiences to end users.

Some people use UX design and user interface (UI) design interchangeably. However, each has its own unique focus. UX design covers the customer journey as people interact with your app or product. UI design focuses on buttons, menus, or anything else that the user interacts with.

There is some overlap between the two design systems, as a clear and functional user interface is essential to providing a pleasant user experience. Skills and focus are different, however, and UX design customer metrics measure more than his UI’s capabilities.

Pamela Pavliscak, founder of Change Sciences, describes metrics as “signals of whether your UX strategy is working. , or the key to benchmarking and setting goals against those of our competitors.”

Related article: Are UX and CX One the same thing?

Why Should You Measure UX?

UX designer Kayode Osinusi explains the importance of measuring user experience: A design problem (and not causing it) is testing the usability of the products we build. “

According to Osinusi, brands should look to metrics to measure and improve this usability.

The difference between UX metrics and KPIs

Metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) are important for analyzing business performance. But they are two separate things, so it’s essential to know the difference and what they measure.

KPIs are clearly measurable, such as average order value (AOV) or return on ad spend (RoAS). This information is expressed in simple numbers and provides valuable insight into the business aspects of your operations.

UX metrics, on the other hand, are difficult to measure because they focus on the subjective question of how users interact with products and services. Tracked over months or measured by measuring customer loyalty or engagement.

KPIs and metrics are important and most effective when used together.

Considerations when planning UX design

When we think of UX design, we tend to think of software and websites, but physical products also have a user experience. When designing a product, how the user will interact with the product is one of his primary concerns.

For physical products, that means considering size, weight, and durability. Products should be large enough to be easily held and manipulated by the user, but not so large (or heavy) as to be unwieldy. It should be easy to use and the user should not worry about breaking it during daily use.

Similar considerations apply to digital products. Software navigation paths should be clear and simple. There should be no “dark patterns” or confusing interactions that could frustrate users. The user interface should be easy to read, with buttons and menus large enough for the user to interact with.

Steven Hoober, President of 4ourth Mobile, explained the importance of considering how users interact with their smartphones when designing mobile apps. “On today’s smartphones, almost the entire front surface is the screen. Users need to be able to see the entire screen and may need to touch any part of the screen to provide input.”

Choosing the Best Metrics to Quantify User Experience

When measuring customer metrics for UX design, you’ll find yourself using a mix of qualitative and quantitative research.

Quantitative research helps generate reports on current trends and more. Qualitative research, on the other hand, is more descriptive. They help us understand the population and general sentiments, but it is difficult to delve into the “why” of the results.

By combining different metrics, KPIs, and approaches, you can better understand your UX design and how your customers are reacting to it.

1. Start with Real User Monitoring

Leverage real user monitoring tools to get information about how your customers are using your product. By tracking real-world user activity, you can gain insights such as:

• install
• Number of users who opened the app
• sessions per day
• session time
• heat map
• User path through app or website

These metrics show how customers are using your app or website and highlight unexpected areas of confusion, poor performance, or oversights in your workflow.

App stores provide an easy way to track installs. And depending on the platform you’re developing for, tools like Appradar and Mixpanel offer relatively easy ways to gather insights about your app and its users.

2. Track engagement over time

Acquiring customers and users through marketing campaigns is one thing, but keeping those users’ attention is another. Looking at page views, app usage, and how users engage with your brand via social media can help you understand if your current approach resonates with your customers.

Engagement is a key customer metric for any kind of business, not just software providers. Take a broader look at how your customers are engaging with your brand. Do they like and comment on your social media? Do they share your content? If you have a loyalty program, are they actively participating?

Engagement stats can tell you how your existing customers feel about your brand, giving you early warning of waning interest and frustration.

3. Get measurable data with CSAT scores

Customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores are a popular KPI, but they can also be part of a broader approach to monitoring UX design success.

CSAT surveys typically use a scale of 1-3, 1-5, or 1-10 to measure how satisfied customers are with your brand. A high score indicates customer satisfaction and a low score indicates dissatisfaction. Scores are calculated using the following formula:

(satisfied customer [score of four or five on survey with a rating of one through five]/ survey responses) x 100 = percentage of satisfied customers

For example, let’s say you have 75 satisfied customers and a total of 100 survey responses. Your CSAT score will be 75%.

The higher the percentage of satisfied customers, the better. His target CSAT score varies by industry, the region he serves, and even the culture of the country.

4. Monitor Usability Metrics for Insights

Usability metrics help show how satisfied your customers are with your app or website and help you understand the causes of dissatisfaction and poor customer engagement.

By measuring how easy it is for users to use your app or website to access specific features or complete important tasks, you can better understand real-world performance. If your completion rate is low, or it takes longer than expected to complete certain tasks, this may explain why users abandon your app.

Ideally, usability issues will be revealed during testing. Focus groups help you identify user interface and documentation issues. Monitoring support tickets, user groups, and social media for feedback and general issues can also help find issues that may not have been noticed until the product was actually released.

5. Compare Customer Adoption and Retention

Compare long-term customer acquisition and retention rates. Even the most successful apps have users who uninstall them or stop opening them after a while. The user may lose interest, or the app may work fine but not meet their needs.

Poor retention can indicate problems with product performance or marketing practices.

Poor adoption could mean you’re not doing a good job of converting existing customers into brand advocates, or that you have room to expand your existing marketing campaigns.

Related article: UX is an ongoing investment for profitable businesses.here’s why

User experience standardization

One way to improve UX design is to standardize your product so that it’s smooth and intuitive to use.

Adi Shanbhag, UX Designer at ICF International, recommended having a design system that she describes as “a living, breathing document that helps define a seamless brand experience for a product or ecosystem of products.” .

Using a design system ensures that key parts of the user experience are the same across the ecosystem. In short, users get a comfortable and familiar experience. Whatever the task you’re trying to accomplish with the product, you always know that certain buttons and menus work a certain way.

This kind of standardization may not seem important for small apps. However, if your product becomes more complex or you have a website that evolves over time, it’s nice to have a standard framework to ensure new pages and features work as expected.

Customer needs and responses are constantly evolving

It’s a good idea to review your UX design regularly to make sure you’re providing a great experience for your users. Many external factors can change the way users interact with your product, including:

• Device preferences (is the user mobile or desktop?)
• OS settings
• Other apps you use
• Bandwidth availability
• hardware specs
• Attitudes towards privacy

It’s useful to keep track of how users are interacting with your product or service. If you notice that the primary user experience is delivered through the website and people tend to access the website through their smartphones, would a mobile first design or dedicated app be more convenient? Please consider what to do.

If your app is built around sharing content, but you’re noticing a decline in interaction with a particular platform, ask your users if there’s another platform they prefer instead.

Treat UX design standards as a living document because users are living people with tastes and habits that change regularly. Evolving with your users helps keep your brand relevant and your community long-lived.