CLIENT: 10+MEDIA
PROJECT: ONE IN A SERIES OF BLOGS ABOUT USER EXPERIENCE.
PUBLISHED: 23 JANUARY, 2017
ASK NOT WHAT YOUR WEBSITE CAN DO FOR YOU, BUT WHAT IT CAN DO FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS
The Keys to Analytics and Metrics
“Get closer than ever to your customer.
So close in fact that you tell them what they need well before they realise it.” – Steve Jobs
A customer votes with his feet. Every time. You may have the best looking store on the planet, but if your customer’s experience in your store is unpleasant he won’t come back. The same thing applies to your website. It takes no more than 20 seconds for a user to realise nothing on your site makes sense or they find it hard to navigate, etc. There’s only so much patience a user can muster for a site that doesn’t work properly.
Here’s the thing though, if you ensure that your website is great – it looks good and works brilliantly to provide your customers with a thoughtful experience – then you can’t go wrong. Because the greatest thing about owning a website is how well it can help you to get to know your customers and ultimately give them exactly what they want.
What is ‘User Experience’?
Whether it’s a department store or an online shopping environment, customers behave the same no matter where they shop. People just love to shop. The whole ‘retail therapy’ experience is what they’re looking for, not just filling a list. They want to be entertained, stimulated and of course buy the item they’re looking for. If all these needs are met, you’ll have both good conversion rates and brand-loyal customers. On the other hand, if the experience on your site is a bad one, they’ll look for another site. And they won’t return.
Metrics can help you understand your customer’s attitudes, behavioural patterns, constraints, expectations and motivations. They will also give you the information you need to massage these expectations.
What are Metrics?
How often a user turns into a paying customer is the most important marketing information analytics measure. But with analytics, unfortunately, only end results are measured. They aren’t used to evaluate design decisions that have been previously taken, nor to encourage future design solutions. They play no part in the experience the user has while visiting your site. You need both analytics and metrics to understand your customer’s initial and recurring journeys through your brand.
The 7 Things the Marketing Team Looks For
The analytics the marketing team will be looking for:
The 8 Things Metrics Measure
Your problem may be that the site is just too difficult or annoying to navigate. In no particular order here are what metrics measure:
Rather than developing a broad and detailed understanding of how their site is working, most companies capture metrics data very randomly, dipping in and out, sampling when they should rather be feasting on facts.
How Can UX (user experience) Metrics Give You the Bigger Picture?
There are three types of UX metrics you should be paying attention to:
Combining both analytics and metrics gives you meaningful data. Analytics reveal customers’ actions - clicking, scrolling, completing a form. Metrics tells you what they thought and felt about navigating your site.
The bottom line is if you want brand-loyal customers, you need to collect as much data as possible and begin to put that data to good use on your website by creating a great user experience.
PROJECT: ONE IN A SERIES OF BLOGS ABOUT USER EXPERIENCE.
PUBLISHED: 23 JANUARY, 2017
ASK NOT WHAT YOUR WEBSITE CAN DO FOR YOU, BUT WHAT IT CAN DO FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS
The Keys to Analytics and Metrics
“Get closer than ever to your customer.
So close in fact that you tell them what they need well before they realise it.” – Steve Jobs
A customer votes with his feet. Every time. You may have the best looking store on the planet, but if your customer’s experience in your store is unpleasant he won’t come back. The same thing applies to your website. It takes no more than 20 seconds for a user to realise nothing on your site makes sense or they find it hard to navigate, etc. There’s only so much patience a user can muster for a site that doesn’t work properly.
Here’s the thing though, if you ensure that your website is great – it looks good and works brilliantly to provide your customers with a thoughtful experience – then you can’t go wrong. Because the greatest thing about owning a website is how well it can help you to get to know your customers and ultimately give them exactly what they want.
What is ‘User Experience’?
Whether it’s a department store or an online shopping environment, customers behave the same no matter where they shop. People just love to shop. The whole ‘retail therapy’ experience is what they’re looking for, not just filling a list. They want to be entertained, stimulated and of course buy the item they’re looking for. If all these needs are met, you’ll have both good conversion rates and brand-loyal customers. On the other hand, if the experience on your site is a bad one, they’ll look for another site. And they won’t return.
Metrics can help you understand your customer’s attitudes, behavioural patterns, constraints, expectations and motivations. They will also give you the information you need to massage these expectations.
What are Metrics?
How often a user turns into a paying customer is the most important marketing information analytics measure. But with analytics, unfortunately, only end results are measured. They aren’t used to evaluate design decisions that have been previously taken, nor to encourage future design solutions. They play no part in the experience the user has while visiting your site. You need both analytics and metrics to understand your customer’s initial and recurring journeys through your brand.
The 7 Things the Marketing Team Looks For
The analytics the marketing team will be looking for:
- Data on clicks
- Bounce rates
- Page views
- The site’s NP score
- Visits to purchase
- Conversion rates
- The cost of conversion
The 8 Things Metrics Measure
Your problem may be that the site is just too difficult or annoying to navigate. In no particular order here are what metrics measure:
- Back button usage
- Data entry
- Ease of use rating
- Error rate
- Perceived success
- Task success rate
- Time on task
- Use of search or navigation
Rather than developing a broad and detailed understanding of how their site is working, most companies capture metrics data very randomly, dipping in and out, sampling when they should rather be feasting on facts.
How Can UX (user experience) Metrics Give You the Bigger Picture?
There are three types of UX metrics you should be paying attention to:
- Descriptive metrics – these tell us what happened
- Perception metrics –highlight the customers’ perception of what happened
- Outcome metrics – what did the customer expect to do as a result of those perceptions vs what the customer actually did
Combining both analytics and metrics gives you meaningful data. Analytics reveal customers’ actions - clicking, scrolling, completing a form. Metrics tells you what they thought and felt about navigating your site.
The bottom line is if you want brand-loyal customers, you need to collect as much data as possible and begin to put that data to good use on your website by creating a great user experience.