Generally speaking, the world of user research can be organized into three areas: tactical research, strategic research, and metrics.
- Tactical: Research that happens (or is at least most effective) between designing something and building it with a goal to identify strengths and weaknesses of the thing, iterating, and improving it. For example, asking four people to complete tasks with a prototype for a new app.
- Strategic: Research that happens at any point on the lifecycle of a product or service (yet is most meaningful prior to designing and building anything) with a goal to understand people, their behavior, and motivation…
In 2012 I published my first book, It’s Our Research, and swore I would never do that again. In 2016 I did it again and published my second book, Validating Product Ideas, and swore I would never do that again.
Throughout the years I asked myself why am I doing it. After all, I don’t really enjoy writing and I truly consider publishing books as the hardest work I have ever done.
A book is one of the most if not the most solid ways to organize a piece of content. It’s a huge personal achievement and I don’t see…
For a user research professional, one of the hardest things to measure is how much stakeholders and clients have bought into user research. There is no clear, quantifiable answer to this question. Nevertheless, there are several signs that indicate stakeholder engagement, uptake, and buy-in. Let us identify some of these signs.
Think about the reasons people and organizations decide to conduct research with users. Why are they doing it? Why are they making the effort? The number one reason organizations do user research is because they want to learn about what their customers want and make the changes necessary to…
Most people respond to this question by saying, “ticket sales”. And that’s great and true. Selling out tickets is an excellent success indicator. But that happens before the actual concert started. Before the band went onstage, before the fans entered the venue, before anyone experienced anything (except for the experience of purchasing tickets).
UX metrics for rock concerts
Measuring different UX metrics during a rock concert sheds light on the actual user (or fan) experience. UX metrics provide a quantitative score for a specific, important, and actionable phenomena related to using a product or service. Here are some examples:
- Level of noise fans make in…
Electric power works even though you probably don’t know or care how. When you plug your charger into a power outlet in the wall, you don’t care about what’s happening behind the wall or at the power plant. You just want your device to charge, right?
User experience researchers know that it is most likely that stakeholders such as product managers, designers, engineers, and leadership sponsor and act on research insights the more they are involved in and engaged with the research process: Set research goals, affect who will participate, observe and even moderate sessions, reach conclusions together, and present…
Start measuring the experience. Now.
Key Experience Indicators (KEIs) provide a quantitative score of a specific, important, and actionable phenomenon related to using a product or service.
Measuring KEIs has the following benefits:
- Provide information to decision makers.
- Precede or predict business outcomes.
- Get insights into qualitative findings and customer anecdotes.
- Identify strengths and weaknesses of a product.
- Understand the effect of a change in the product.
- Understand the value of a product.
- Evaluate the user experience of a product.
- Get indications for reaching product/market fit.
- Provide a baseline to improve from.
The following are 16 KEIs to start measuring when you want to score…
This is part 5 in a series of articles about measuring Key Experience Indicators (KEIs). In this series I go deeper into the Google HEART framework for large-scale data analysis. The framework was put in place to help choose and define appropriate metrics that reflect both the quality of user experience and the goals of your product. Each article in the series discusses one of the HEART dimensions — Happiness, Engagement, Adoption, Retention, and Task success. Enjoy and use it!
What is task success?
Task success goes back to the definition of traditional usability and include two primary components — user effectiveness and efficiency…
This is part 4 in a series of articles about measuring Key Experience Indicators (KEIs). In this series I go deeper into the Google HEART framework for large-scale data analysis. The framework was put in place to help choose and define appropriate metrics that reflect both the quality of user experience and the goals of your product. Each article in the series discusses one of the HEART dimensions — Happiness, Engagement, Adoption, Retention, and Task success. Enjoy and use it!
What is retention?
User retention is the continued use of a product or feature. When considering overall retention of using a product, you…
This is part 2 in a series of articles about measuring Key Experience Indicators (KEIs). In this series I go deeper into the Google HEART framework for large-scale data analysis. The framework was put in place to help choose and define appropriate metrics that reflect both the quality of user experience and the goals of your product. Each article in the series discusses one of the HEART dimensions — Happiness, Engagement, Adoption, Retention, and Task success. Enjoy and use it!
What is engagement?
In the context of products and services, engagement is the level of user involvement with a product. The term normally…
This is part 3 in a series of articles about measuring Key Experience Indicators (KEIs). In this series I go deeper into the Google HEART framework for large-scale data analysis. The framework was put in place to help choose and define appropriate metrics that reflect both the quality of user experience and the goals of your product. Each article in the series discusses one of the HEART dimensions — Happiness, Engagement, Adoption, Retention, and Task success. Enjoy and use it!
What is adoption?
In the context of products and services, adoption is the act of beginning to use something new.
Considering new features…
