Research: Analytics

This is a sample chapter from Luke Hay’s book Researching UX: Analytics. 2017 SitePoint.

Chapter 6: Measuring and Reporting Outcomes

“The greatest value of a picture is when it forces us to notice what we never expected to see.”—John Tukey, American Mathematician

So far, we’ve covered how to check that your analytics is set up correctly, how to use analytics data to identify potential problems, and how to use it for user research. These techniques, along with other UX methods, will help you to identify where you should make changes to your Web site, and what those changes might look like. Once you’ve made the changes to your site, don’t stop there! You should look to measure the outcome of those changes and learn from the results. 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

In actuality, most people spend most of their time on Web sites and apps other than those our organizations have created, and we may not know much about what those experiences are really like. However, your organization can map the customer journey. There is no one right way to map a customer journey. Journey mapping can mean defining an ideal path that we’d like customers to take. Sometimes it means seeking a more nuanced understanding of what people do on a Web site. Less often, we look at an experience globally, mapping touch points for a product or brand, both online and offline.

Whether people are making direct comparisons or just moving from site to site, the most common user experience is the multi-site experience. Booking travel typically involves more than ten sites. Finding a place to eat might involve a mix of sites and apps, very few of which are about the actual dining experience. Even watching a favorite TV show—something we used to think of as a fully engaged or directed activity—can involve other sites. Read More