Data in User Experience (Data-Driven UX)
Behavioral data — clicks, funnels, heatmaps — guide product and UX decisions. How to collect, analyze, and act on the experience in a structured way.
In your company, where is your user or end consumer during the decision-making process? Are priorities focused on pricing, following what your competitors are doing, or delivering solutions/products that delight and retain your customers? When it comes to user experience, how much of a priority is that on your side? Is your product or service actually useful and does it provide a good usage experience for your consumer?
Okay, this is a reflection that can be a little painful to make, but it is extremely important to guide your business’s strategic decisions in the right direction.
We always talk about how to make the best decisions here on the Erathos blog, but it’s worth repeating: data analysis focused on user experience is the best way to do that!
This topic has always been important and has driven innovation in the technology field, but in recent years it has become even more important for organizations, especially in the post-pandemic scenario, where we went through a rapid acceleration in the digitization of products and services. In this article, we’ll explain the impact of data analysis on user experience (Data-Driven UX).
User Experience
Before the growth of the internet and social media to the level we know today, brands only needed to focus on developing good products and delivering solid solutions to the market.
In general, companies had a certain ability to create demand for what they offered, and consumers had to adapt to them. But the global landscape is no longer like that! Nowadays, it’s not enough to launch an innovative solution and wait for your customers to adapt to you!
The rules of the game have changed, and the consumer is at the center of the business as a vital part of its success or failure. This concept has been becoming increasingly important in such a connected world. Having goals that include user experience means improving how users and end customers interact with your product, website, software, or solution—not only understanding how this interaction happens, but actually optimizing all touchpoints with the market so people’s experience is as positive as possible.
In other words… User experience measures all user interactions with a brand. This involves understanding the customer journey, from the moment someone is exposed to ads, through the moment they are ready to close a deal and become a customer of your brand, and onward through retention tracking.
How can you understand, engage, and delight your user?
The easiest answer is: first, listen to what they have to say about your company. Has your company conducted any NPS surveys, or other satisfaction surveys aimed at analyzing overall satisfaction with the brand and the solutions offered? Are you open to negative feedback, or do you always try to justify mistakes?
To reach these insights, you need to analyze multiple metrics that vary according to your company’s market segment—and that’s where data analysis comes in to understand user experience!
To understand your user’s relationship with your brand, it’s very important to pay attention to a series of highly relevant factors, gathering metrics and designing surveys that consider the following elements:
Visual appeal
What is the visual relationship your users and customers have with your brand at first glance? Brands like Coca-Cola, Nike, Apple, Nubank, and Uber have consolidated themselves in the market in such a way that even people who don’t use these services and products still have some kind of relationship or opinion about the company.
Understanding how your end user relates to your brand—based on data, satisfaction surveys, or even marketing data collection—can help improve your market positioning and gain greater recognition.
Usefulness
Do you buy useless items, solutions you perceive as inefficient, or things you don’t like? How useful people consider what you’re offering is a difficult pain point to fix, but it is an important vulnerability to identify so you can implement a culture of continuous improvement.
Usability
Your solution or product should not have a difficult interface that requires a high level of prior training and enablement for your target audience to understand the value it adds. The simpler and easier it is to use, the better. In this sense, a concept that may be important to master in your company is UI Design (User Interface Design). Despite the name, UI techniques are not only about creating functional interfaces—they also prioritize usability.
Credibility
One of the most significant factors for a good experience is when the user feels they can always rely on your brand when they need to use your solution.
For example: the reputation of banks and digital payment companies suffers a severe loss of credibility when users do not trust they will be able to access their accounts when needed; food manufacturers lose many consumers when accidents happen; among other situations that affect credibility.
Performance
Your products and services should always fulfill the function they promise, within the time they promise, and with the promised depth and usability! In addition to contributing to the credibility criterion, this also helps users perceive your brand’s quality.
How to become more Data-Driven?
To be more data-driven in your user experience strategy, you first need to know where to look. One of the biggest mistakes companies make when starting a data-driven journey is not collecting enough data—or even collecting too much data that is not usable when seeking insights for decisions that need to be made.
Therefore, one of the best starting points for understanding your customer and user is this: organize your data sources and know how to collect the information that will help generate useful insights.
When it comes to user experience, these sources may include: NPS and satisfaction surveys, your website and social media metrics, sales reports, churn and sales channel analysis, feedback from support and other service channels, and all of your brand’s touchpoints with your customer.
All of these generate metrics and data that need to be collected, interpreted, and analyzed to extract realistic insights and determine the best decisions to improve user experience.
Another important strategy is to map your users’ touchpoints with your brand, from the beginning of their interaction with initial ads, to the purchase closing moment, during subsequent use of your solution, and even eventual churn. These metrics help reveal not only satisfaction, but also improvement opportunities.
Avoiding guesswork
In the business world, it’s common to have insights throughout day-to-day operations. We always have ideas about why customer X decided to stop using the product, or why social media stopped bringing in as many leads as before. However, even if this feeling helps point in the right direction, when it comes to taking action, only the use of data can guide the best decisions for your company. So, avoid guesswork and embrace data!
Conclusion
As we mentioned earlier, it is almost impossible to predict and fully understand the user experience simply from the perspective of whoever launches the solution. It’s no use… You may have the best designer in the world on your team, but in the end, understanding user experience does not happen intuitively for those behind the solution.
The best way to understand the user is by being open to hearing directly from them about how their experience is going—whether through satisfaction surveys, NPS, or by collecting data from service and support channels.
There are always additional touchpoints that can be explored, more accurate metrics to analyze, and previously unseen data sources. In addition, having a more mature data culture enables and helps you build a more customer-centric culture—focused on customer needs.
Another important point is to keep in mind when the right time is to count on the help of a strategic partner to implement a better data strategy for your organization’s user experience area.
Talk to Erathos and schedule a meeting. Our data team includes engineers, BI analysts, and a complete squad to help your company start its data-driven journey and achieve game-changing results in less time.
In your company, where is your user or end consumer during the decision-making process? Are priorities focused on pricing, following what your competitors are doing, or delivering solutions/products that delight and retain your customers? When it comes to user experience, how much of a priority is that on your side? Is your product or service actually useful and does it provide a good usage experience for your consumer?
Okay, this is a reflection that can be a little painful to make, but it is extremely important to guide your business’s strategic decisions in the right direction.
We always talk about how to make the best decisions here on the Erathos blog, but it’s worth repeating: data analysis focused on user experience is the best way to do that!
This topic has always been important and has driven innovation in the technology field, but in recent years it has become even more important for organizations, especially in the post-pandemic scenario, where we went through a rapid acceleration in the digitization of products and services. In this article, we’ll explain the impact of data analysis on user experience (Data-Driven UX).
User Experience
Before the growth of the internet and social media to the level we know today, brands only needed to focus on developing good products and delivering solid solutions to the market.
In general, companies had a certain ability to create demand for what they offered, and consumers had to adapt to them. But the global landscape is no longer like that! Nowadays, it’s not enough to launch an innovative solution and wait for your customers to adapt to you!
The rules of the game have changed, and the consumer is at the center of the business as a vital part of its success or failure. This concept has been becoming increasingly important in such a connected world. Having goals that include user experience means improving how users and end customers interact with your product, website, software, or solution—not only understanding how this interaction happens, but actually optimizing all touchpoints with the market so people’s experience is as positive as possible.
In other words… User experience measures all user interactions with a brand. This involves understanding the customer journey, from the moment someone is exposed to ads, through the moment they are ready to close a deal and become a customer of your brand, and onward through retention tracking.
How can you understand, engage, and delight your user?
The easiest answer is: first, listen to what they have to say about your company. Has your company conducted any NPS surveys, or other satisfaction surveys aimed at analyzing overall satisfaction with the brand and the solutions offered? Are you open to negative feedback, or do you always try to justify mistakes?
To reach these insights, you need to analyze multiple metrics that vary according to your company’s market segment—and that’s where data analysis comes in to understand user experience!
To understand your user’s relationship with your brand, it’s very important to pay attention to a series of highly relevant factors, gathering metrics and designing surveys that consider the following elements:
Visual appeal
What is the visual relationship your users and customers have with your brand at first glance? Brands like Coca-Cola, Nike, Apple, Nubank, and Uber have consolidated themselves in the market in such a way that even people who don’t use these services and products still have some kind of relationship or opinion about the company.
Understanding how your end user relates to your brand—based on data, satisfaction surveys, or even marketing data collection—can help improve your market positioning and gain greater recognition.
Usefulness
Do you buy useless items, solutions you perceive as inefficient, or things you don’t like? How useful people consider what you’re offering is a difficult pain point to fix, but it is an important vulnerability to identify so you can implement a culture of continuous improvement.
Usability
Your solution or product should not have a difficult interface that requires a high level of prior training and enablement for your target audience to understand the value it adds. The simpler and easier it is to use, the better. In this sense, a concept that may be important to master in your company is UI Design (User Interface Design). Despite the name, UI techniques are not only about creating functional interfaces—they also prioritize usability.
Credibility
One of the most significant factors for a good experience is when the user feels they can always rely on your brand when they need to use your solution.
For example: the reputation of banks and digital payment companies suffers a severe loss of credibility when users do not trust they will be able to access their accounts when needed; food manufacturers lose many consumers when accidents happen; among other situations that affect credibility.
Performance
Your products and services should always fulfill the function they promise, within the time they promise, and with the promised depth and usability! In addition to contributing to the credibility criterion, this also helps users perceive your brand’s quality.
How to become more Data-Driven?
To be more data-driven in your user experience strategy, you first need to know where to look. One of the biggest mistakes companies make when starting a data-driven journey is not collecting enough data—or even collecting too much data that is not usable when seeking insights for decisions that need to be made.
Therefore, one of the best starting points for understanding your customer and user is this: organize your data sources and know how to collect the information that will help generate useful insights.
When it comes to user experience, these sources may include: NPS and satisfaction surveys, your website and social media metrics, sales reports, churn and sales channel analysis, feedback from support and other service channels, and all of your brand’s touchpoints with your customer.
All of these generate metrics and data that need to be collected, interpreted, and analyzed to extract realistic insights and determine the best decisions to improve user experience.
Another important strategy is to map your users’ touchpoints with your brand, from the beginning of their interaction with initial ads, to the purchase closing moment, during subsequent use of your solution, and even eventual churn. These metrics help reveal not only satisfaction, but also improvement opportunities.
Avoiding guesswork
In the business world, it’s common to have insights throughout day-to-day operations. We always have ideas about why customer X decided to stop using the product, or why social media stopped bringing in as many leads as before. However, even if this feeling helps point in the right direction, when it comes to taking action, only the use of data can guide the best decisions for your company. So, avoid guesswork and embrace data!
Conclusion
As we mentioned earlier, it is almost impossible to predict and fully understand the user experience simply from the perspective of whoever launches the solution. It’s no use… You may have the best designer in the world on your team, but in the end, understanding user experience does not happen intuitively for those behind the solution.
The best way to understand the user is by being open to hearing directly from them about how their experience is going—whether through satisfaction surveys, NPS, or by collecting data from service and support channels.
There are always additional touchpoints that can be explored, more accurate metrics to analyze, and previously unseen data sources. In addition, having a more mature data culture enables and helps you build a more customer-centric culture—focused on customer needs.
Another important point is to keep in mind when the right time is to count on the help of a strategic partner to implement a better data strategy for your organization’s user experience area.
Talk to Erathos and schedule a meeting. Our data team includes engineers, BI analysts, and a complete squad to help your company start its data-driven journey and achieve game-changing results in less time.