Numbers are the ultimate unifier. No matter if you are a consultant, contractor or employee, you have specific goals, and those goals typically have numbers associated with them. This provides a convenient bridge between a creative field (user experience/UX) and any other field, such as business, analytics or development. We may have different jargon within our respective fields, but we all speak in numbers in some way. It’s for this reason that I use data to guide my vision for user experience, allowing me to frame it in a context that everyone understands.
I use data in two distinct ways—before a project starts and then again after it completes. First, I take cues from data that already exists. Whether we are redesigning a site, a group of pages or a single page, I will ask if there’s any data associated with these experiences. Then, I’ll use that data to reveal opportunities for improvement. The list of metrics we can use in this way is endless, but there are a few common ones I will ask for:
- Conversion rate
- Average order value
- Order completion time
- New vs. returning visitors
- Bounce rates
- Use of search vs. navigation
- Task success rate
- Pages viewed
- Net Promoter Score
I use the available data to help formulate a design vision. For example, for a B2B ecommerce client, I found that 73% of their home page visits came from returning visitors. Combine that with the user’s need to log in to fully access their website, and it made sense to expose the login fields on the home page. Generally, I would not recommend doing this on a B2C website, but the numbers for this particular client revealed a clear pattern of user behavior and need.
Then, once the new design is implemented, I track the results by comparing the “after” data to the “before” data. User experience can be very subjective, meaning it can be hard to see if we’ve made progress or not. Creating goals based on numbers gives us a concrete way to know if we are making the right improvements on the website. Now, instead of judging work based on subjective factors such as design or copy preference, we judge it objectively with numbers. Numbers turn an abstract concept (good user experience) into a concrete one, focused on specific goals of raising, lowering or maintaining a number. Data also helps us avoid getting lost in discussions about personal preferences and taste, which can often inhibit progress altogether.
In my experience, data is a powerful tool to reveal opportunities that often go unseen and provide great structure for entire teams to work towards the same goal.