UX Metrics - What Are They and Why Are They Important
When was the last time you went onto a website and left it almost instantaneously because it took too long to load, it was difficult to use, you couldn’t find what you were looking for, or the aesthetics were off-putting?
According to Hubspot, “55% of your visitors spend less than 15 seconds on your website” and this is just because of page load speed times. With such a small amount of time, you want to make sure that you’re doing everything you can to keep those users and create the absolute best experience for them. And to do this, being aware of and running consistent UX Metrics is key.
UX Metrics are very important in today’s world since everything comes down to a user’s experience with your product. User experience, in general, is something that should be monitored constantly, which then should help determine your design updates. You should always be wanting to improve your product based on your user’s feedback. By measuring specific UX Metrics, you’re able to do this efficiently. Continue reading to learn more about UX Metrics and how you can utilize this data to improve your product.
What Are UX Metrics?
UX Metrics are data points used to measure, compare, and track the user experience of a website or application within a specific set of time, known as campaigns. What you’re measuring should be reflected within each specific campaign.
Why Are UX Metrics Important?
UX Metrics are important because it allows you to target specific elements or features within your product for improvement based on your user’s feedback. By tracking specific metrics, you’re able to see pain points and areas that need improvements to create that seamless experience for your users. If you aren’t aware of these issues, you’re going to lose your customer base and then be stuck wondering what went wrong and why your product is underperforming.
The Challenges With UX Metrics
One of the biggest challenges when it comes to UX Metrics is that they are hard to translate.
When we talk about users and metrics, it has to specifically deal with human behavior and one’s attitude. Both of these in turn are subjective which makes them difficult to translate.
A smaller challenge is that these metrics are often talked about interchangeably with KPIs. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are measurable values that show how effectively a company is achieving its key business objectives.
How To Determine Which Metrics To Use
First are foremost, you should analyze your business’s KPIs and then look at the current product design strategy. There are a lot of different metrics to choose from, so making sure to be selective is key.
By consolidating down your study to just a few metrics helps you target a specific amount of data to analyze and work off of. Based on the results you get from that campaign, you can then start making proper design improvements to your product.
Types of UX Metrics
Behavioral UX Metrics
Behavioral Metrics are quantitative and really focus on what users are doing. More specifically, it refers to the actions of users when interacting with your product. It’s beneficial to understand what people are doing and how they’re using your product. If they aren’t using it correctly, then they’re using your product in a different manner than you didn’t design it.
There are a lot of behavioral metrics as you can see below, but we have picked the top three to explore in more detail.
• Abandonment Rate
• Task Time
• Bounce Rate
• Average Order Value (AVO)
• Conversions
• Pageviews
• Problems & Frustrations
• Task Success
• Average Session Length
• Error Rate
• And More
Abandonment Rate
Abandonment rate is a very common metric specifically related to e-commerce with the online shopping experience. It refers to how many people visit your online store, add items to their basket, and then abandon them without making a purchase.
From a more mathematical standpoint, it’s the ratio of the number of abandoned purchase attempts to the overall number of initiated transactions. If you have a high abandonment rate, it’s likely that you need to rethink your current checkout experience.
Task Time
Task time refers to metrics related to task-specific activities and how much time a user spends doing a particular one. This can be measured in seconds, minutes, or hours depending on the activity. If your product has tasks that should be done efficiently, you want a shorter task time.
However, if your product’s intention is to keep users on the page for as long as possible, like a blog for example, you want a larger task time. There are different ways to measure task time, but the most common is to calculate the average time spent on each task. The average time on task is equal to the average time taken to complete a task over the total time to complete all tasks.
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors to a website or application that navigate away from it after viewing only one page and taking no action. When someone leaves your website, that’s a missed opportunity for a conversion. There are a variety of reasons for this, but the most common is that your home page isn’t engaging or satisfying for users.
Bounce rates can also be used as a Google ranking feature so it’s important to evaluate them and improve your product in this area. Being able to capture the user’s attention is key so that they want to explore more pages and then make the intended call to action.
Attitudinal UX Metrics
Attitudinal Metrics are qualitative and really focus on what users are saying. More specifically, it measures how a person feels about your product. It also gauges loyalty, trust, and satisfaction which is shown through brand satisfaction and customer loyalty.
If users don’t like your product, you will lose them as customers which has a negative impact on your business as a whole. There are a lot of behavioral metrics as you can see below, and we will dig into more detail about the top three.
• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• System Usability Scale (SUS)
• User Retention Rate
• Task Performance Indicator (TPI)
• Daily/Month/Active Users (DAU/MAU)
• Standardized User Experience Percentile Rank Questionaire (SUPR-Q)
• And More
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Net Promoter Score (NPS) simply measures customer loyalty. It helps you measure this based on one specific question—“How likely is it that you would recommend this company/product/service/experience to others?”. The rating system is based on a scale of 0 to 10 and broken down into three specific groups.
Scoring between 0 and 6 is known as a detractor, scoring a 7 or 8 is passive, and scoring a 9 or 10 is a promoter. In order to calculate the score, you subtract the percentage of promoters from the percentage of detractors. Your score can range anywhere from -100 all the way up to 100.
If you fall between -100 and 0, you should start brainstorming product improvements and design enhancements. The higher your NPS, the higher your level of user loyalty for your product.
Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) also measures customer loyalty but it also measures satisfaction. This UX Metric indicates how satisfied users are with a particular item or the experience overall.
In order to gather this information, the usage of surveys is key. You can ask a single question or create a full-length survey. How you choose to set up the survey will dictate the overall scoring. If you choose yes or no questions, it will produce a percentage score.
However, if you choose questions with a scale of 1 to a specific number, it produces a combined score. The biggest drawback to this metric is that it can be difficult to get people that are willing to fill out these surveys.
System Usability Scale (SUS)
When compared to NPS and CSAT, the System Usability Scale metric dives deeply into the actual user experience as well as assessing the usability of a product. It’s a questionnaire that consists of 10 statements that users need to rate on a five-point scale. This scale ranges from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Based on how users answer, you get a score between 1 and 100. The higher your score is the better usability your product has.
As you can see, UX Metrics play a key role in the overall user experience. If you’re wondering how well your product works and how your users are feeling about your product, understanding and evaluating metrics is critical.
