When you make an amazing product, you may not realize that a poor user experience is preventing you from meeting your real growth potential.
But with something as subjective and broad as UX, how can you tell if it's holding you back? Interestingly, the answer is still in the numbers.
It can be an intensive process, but UX is measurable, and you can even find signs of issues in your sales KPIs. We'll discuss how UX affects product metrics, some of the different UX measurements you can employ, and how a UX audit can turn things around.
What Is UX in Product Design?
UX involves the efficiency and satisfaction that users experience while trying to complete a task or accomplish a goal. In the case of a website or app, it surrounds the interactions that, ideally, lead to a sale and an ongoing relationship.
UX can be easily forgotten or overlooked when you're focused on the solution you're selling. But the truth is, the website design and functionality is just as much a part of the product as the solution itself.
Customers who have difficulty using your website will go to a competitor with a better design, even if you have better prices or products. It's connected to your business success, and you'll see the effects of your shortcomings in your metrics.
How UX Affects Product Metrics
Businesses don't all use the same KPIs, and the quality of the user experience will show itself in different ways. For example, an online retailer may see cart abandonment go up after a redesign, while a subscription service might see a high churn rate.
Your approach to your website's UX should be defined by the metrics-based goals specific to your company. Luckily, most businesses share a few common objectives, and you can get an idea of how your UX is performing by looking at these essential metrics.
Conversion Rate
The user experience online is similar to the shopping experience in a store, and the conversion rate shows up in much the same way. If a customer walks into a store and leaves without buying, it hurts your conversion.
The same is true with a website. If a customer enters your website and leaves without buying, you have to wonder why that happened.
Did they not find what they were looking for? Were they overwhelmed by options? Were they unable to use their preferred credit card?
It's not always directly tied to your UX, but if your conversion rate starts to stumble with all things being equal, it may be time for a UX audit.
Average Order Value
The UX contributes to how many sales or signups you get and the quality of those transactions. That means how you upsell or cross-sell products or features. With a better UX, you make it easier for users to find and use them.
If you find that your order value is low or that users are hesitant to upgrade to a new feature, you may need to improve that component of your site.
Measuring Your UX Design
KPIs like retention, active users, and adoption rates can help you hone in on some UX-related issues inherent in your website or app. But a quicker way to find opportunities in your design is by measuring it directly.
A blend of qualitative and quantitative methods will show you how to positively impact user behaviors and attitudes. It's crucial to find metrics that make sense to investigate and set clear timeframes and benchmarks to determine your success. The following are some essential tools you can use to gauge the quality of your UX design.
Task Success Rate
The task success rate is a popular metric that shows usability issues around accomplishing a specific goal.
A group of participants representing average users is given a defined task like filling out a landing page form or finding a piece of information on a website. The number of people who completed the task is then divided by the total number of participants to get your task completion percentage.
Task Completion Time
Task time is a measure of how long it takes for a user to complete a task. In general, a shorter time is ideal because users will be more likely to hang around long enough to complete it and feel less frustrated. You can further break down the measurement into just those users who completed the task or those who failed to complete it.
Customer Satisfaction
Observational data from task-related studies can indicate where users might have problems with a UX, but surveys are the best way to fully understand user satisfaction.
A CSAT score is a basic measure, usually on a scale of 1-10, that asks how satisfied a user is with a product. It's a quantitative tool that can give you a simple insight into a UX detail. For example, you can send a CSAT survey to a customer who just made a purchase or needed help from a chatbot.
Net Promoter Score
Like CSAT scores, net promoter scores are a 1-10 measure related to a user's satisfaction. NPS reveals how much users trust your product, specifically if they trust it enough to recommend it to a friend. Scores between 9-10 indicate promoters, while scores from 0-6 show that users are dissatisfied detractors.
You can send an NPS survey out based on the same user actions as you would with a CSAT survey, like when they make a purchase or complete a form. In both cases, adding fields for qualitative insights can give you some direction on improving your UX.
Usability Scores
What is UX? It's a broad concept, but most people will initially equate it to usability. It makes sense then that many turn to usability scales for analyzing their UX.
A System Usability Scale(SUS) asks ten questions about whether or not a website is intuitive, with answers ranging from "Strongly Agree" to "Strong Disagree." The System Usability Scale can reveal several bits of valuable information, including how easy tasks are to complete, how easy a website is to understand, and whether users will continue using a website.
Start with a UX Audit
Researching UX is extremely labor-intensive, primarily because you're trying to define rules from qualitative sources. Finding the "why" to user issues can involve several aspects of your website, and it can take a long time to pinpoint everything you need to optimize.
That's why a heuristic-based audit is the best way to start improving your website's UX immediately. With expert insights around website design, accessibility, content, and security features, you can make a positive impact on your UX that will show in your KPIs. Get started on a UX audit from Look-See to find out where you can start making better experiences today.