Research: Analytics

As UX professionals, having a general understanding of the ways in which users experience a Web site can be helpful, but there is truly immense value in using data analytics to pin down exact data points that can inform the UX design process.

In this article, I’ll consider how UX designers can leverage data analytics to enhance the user experience in a variety of ways. For example, you can use data analytics to better understand users, reap significant benefits by solving customers’ issues, or refine a Web site’s content. Perhaps most importantly, you can increase conversions by improving the effectiveness of calls to action (CTAs) or the purchasing process on an ecommerce site. Read More

Log monitoring holds significant value for improving the user experience despite its primary association with Operations or Information Technology (IT). The problems that many IT teams face include stuttering pages, slow page-loading times, and frequent crashes. Logs can reveal bottlenecks and bugs and often hold the answers to identifying and solving such problems.

Understanding why such problems are occurring lets you resolve their root cause and ensure a smooth user experience that prevents user frustration. Let’s consider several ways in which log monitoring can contribute to enhancing the user experience:

• proactive issue identification
• performance optimization
• user-behavior analysis
• enhanced troubleshooting
• optimization of user journeys
• security and privacy assurance  Read More

When we think of analytics, we think of marketing campaigns and funnel optimization. Analytics can seem a little overwhelming, with so many charts and lots of new features. How can we use analytics for design insights?

The best thing about analytics is that they can show us what people do on their own. The worst thing is that analytics don’t tell us much about context, motivations, and intent. Like any kind of data, there are limitations. But that doesn’t mean analytics aren’t useful. Working with analytics is about knowing where to look and learning which questions you can reasonably ask. Read More