User Experience (UX) is one of your most vital tools at your disposal for securing higher conversion rates. With the right UX, you can streamline your potential for ecommerce success and boost your revenues. However, no approach to UX is complete without the use of data.
But getting started requires a broad understanding of how to gather and interpret data if you hope to successfully apply that information. Here’s what you should know about leveraging customer data to inform UX decisions.
Gathering and interpreting customer data
In today’s world of common connected devices, generating customer data is easier than ever before. Popular analytics platforms allow you to seamlessly generate information that can change your UX for the better. From Google Analytics to social media insights applications, the tools you need are often free and easy to use.
Start your data gathering journey by assembling a list of metrics that can help your UX. These won’t necessarily directly impact your UX from the beginning, but keeping an eye on them can inform your overall approach to an effective, user-focused design. Some of these helpful metrics can best be remembered with the acronym PULSE, meaning:
- Page views
- Uptime
- Latency
- Seven-day active users
- Earnings
By setting goals for these metrics that align with your larger intentions for your business, you can create a network of information that will inform your UX. For example, the uptime and latency of your web content are vital aspects of user experience. If these are faulty, you have improvements to make. Then, gather data using the acronym HEART to tell a more accurate story regarding customer engagement. HEART stands for user:
- Happiness
- Engagement
- Adoption
- Retention
- Task success
These analytics may be more difficult to gather than the former, less abstract metrics. However, plenty of tools are at your disposal to help you gauge customer opinion relative to their experience with your content. From email surveys to A/B testing, generating useful data doesn’t have to be difficult.
However, applying this data can be difficult without the right expertise on your team. Data science is a career that combines computer science, mathematics, and statistics to structure data for easier understanding and business applications. These professionals can make leveraging customer data for effective UX a cinch. But if you don’t have access to a trained data professional, you can still make use of certain strategies to improve your UX.
Applying data-driven UX decisions
Applying data in your decision-making process can be key to customer retention and lead generation. Common UX mistakes like too much text or long loading times can make you lose leads left and right, impacting your overall revenues and affecting your ability to scale your business.
UX is everything. Learn how to improve yours with the effective application of customer data. Here are a few proven strategies for making this possible:
Form a narrative
The effectiveness of your customer data in your approach to UX depends upon your ability to build a real-world narrative out of the information you gather. Stories help us develop empathy and explore the needs and challenges of customers. Often, when we are designing an experience it can be difficult to put ourselves in the minds of our intended users and assess all the ways our customers interact with our content. That’s where tools like story mapping come in handy.
A story map documents step-by-step in a visual form all the paths users take when interacting with a platform. From the initial path that takes users to your content to the checkout process, a story map can reveal obstacles to customer success in the UX that may otherwise go unnoticed.
Collaborate with customers
Inviting customer collaborations and feedback at every stage of the process is a great way to continuously generate data and improve our design. Leave no stone unturned in this process. Social media can be an excellent source for gauging user feedback, finding out user challenges, and considering customer needs. Build accurate customer profiles so you know what target audience to seek out in UX collaborations, then send out email surveys, questionnaires, samples, and more to an audience that meets your data-driven demographics.
Continuously review design changes
At any point in the process, changing a feature of your UX could lead to problems for your audience. That’s why you must develop a strategy for continuously reviewing your metrics to inform the ongoing success of your websites’ design. Implement a schedule for intermittent user testing as well as a standardized practice for experimenting with changes. Effective A/B testing can keep your website from stressing out visitors by garnering their feedback before any changes go live. As a result, you’ll catch problems in UX before they are even problems.
Leveraging data for more sales
Customer data is widely useful and available. Gather metrics vital to your unique customer experience, test your design, and customize your platforms to best target your audience. Leveraging data for UX improvements can lead to valuable benefits, as was the case when Virgin America redesigned its website. This resulted in a 14% boost in the site’s conversation rates.
Customer data can be invaluable when designing an ideal user experience. Apply the strategies listed here for a more powerful approach to UX.
Luke Smith is a writer and researcher turned blogger. Since finishing college, he is trying his hand at being a freelance writer. He enjoys writing on a variety of topics but technology and digital marketing are his favorites. When he isn’t writing you can find him traveling, hiking, or gaming.
