By Owen Fay . Posted on September 6, 2022Do you know what user experience metrics to track? How many metrics are you tracking? Are you using the right metrics at the right time? There are a number of important metrics to track for user experience, from NPS to CSAT, SUS, and more, it can be difficult to know which ones to track at which times.
Each has its pros and cons and in your research process, one or more of them could help improve or measure user experience. When you are using the right metrics you can increase stakeholder investments in research. There’s one thing that the executive team or investors will always get on board with: numbers.
Qualitative and quantitative data is extremely valuable, but without the right metrics or tracking to validate insights, you might not be able to get everyone on board with your decisions.
So, where do you start? We’re going to cover some of the things you can track in user experience. Understanding the benefits and limitations of each helps focus on the impact of research and guides your projects to improve UX.
Why Should You Track Metrics as a UX Researcher?
Tracking metrics doesn’t have to be a time-consuming affair. Merely being aware of where, when, and how you will gather UX metrics with your team means that you are well on your way to improving user experience substantially.
To guarantee that you are tracking the right things at the right time, keep the following questions in mind:
- Who is going to use the metrics? Is it going to be the product or research teams? Or is the customer success team measuring customer happiness?
- What is the frequency with which you need to measure the metrics? Is it going to be quarterly, yearly, or monthly? Is it going to be after you release a new service or product?
- Where are you capturing the metrics? Are you doing it via mail or at various stages in the user’s lifecycle? Are you using it at a particular stage in product development?
- What is the purpose of these metrics? Are you utilizing the metrics for benchmarking? Is it for measuring the impact of a new initiative?
You and your organization should consider where, when, and how you will gather UX metrics in your research to use them effectively in cross-functional teams.
5 User Experience Metrics to Consider
Here are five reliable user experience metrics for you to consider. They have been tested and validated extensively to ensure that they will give you the best results if you choose to apply them, depending on your needs. Notably, these metrics can help you target usability and ease of use to deliver the best brand experience.
1. SUPR-Q (Standardized User Experience Percentile Rank Questionnaire)
Standardized User Experience Percentile Rank Questionnaire/ SUPR-Q helps measure user experience on apps and websites. It comprises eight questions that can help brands understand how usable, trustable, visually appealing, and loyalty-inducing their websites or applications are.
When to use SUPR-Q?
The SUPR-Q is something you need to run at various strategic points in the development phase of your products. Specifically, it is used to assess website or application design during the validation phase so that you can make improvements based on user reactions.
It is worth mentioning that the SUPR-Q metric is used to determine the trustworthiness and credibility of e-commerce sites, especially those with payment gateways integrated into them. Besides, it can go a long way in helping you redesign your website optimally for a better user experience by allowing you to compare your website to the SUPR-Q scores of over 200 other websites, including the ones of top brands.
Pros
- It can simultaneously capture customer loyalty and user experience metrics.
- The score can be taken as a benchmark.
- It is easy to understand and implement.
- It can be executed quickly.
Cons
- Access to competitor data is kept behind a paywall, requiring a substantial licensing fee.
- It is more suitable for measuring the user experience of websites.
- It has limited abilities when it comes to identifying navigation problems or other interface issues.
2. SUS (System Usability Scale)
The SUS is a popular standardized usability questionnaire that can reveal the usability of websites, apps, or other digital products. The test is quite versatile; it can be used on anything with a user interface, and it is highly recommended for testing software applications. It is also one of the few questionnaires covering learnability and usability.
When to Use SUS
It is often used as a qualitative follow-up to usability testing. The test is highly valuable during the stages of product validation and prototyping. At the prototype stage itself, you can employ SUS to catch usability issues. It can come in handy for performing functionality testing and assessing specific features of your product.
Pros
- It provides highly reliable and repeatable results.
- You can get great results with a small sample size.
- It is an industry standard with references in over 1300 articles and publications.
Cons
- Converting raw results into usable data can be time-consuming.
- It has a hard time identifying navigation issues, accessibility, and usefulness.
- It is worth noting that long-time users can skew your data.
3. CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score)
The CSAT reflects customer satisfaction with their overall experience with your brand or a particular interaction. It is measured as a percentage and is quite common across industries as a measure of the quality of customer experience and product quality.
Typically, companies measure CSAT through customer feedback as a question or a survey, where respondents rate their satisfaction on a 10 or 5-point scale. Companies then take the highest values in the customer feedback and use the following formula:
Percentage of satisfied customers = Number of satisfied customers (respondents who picked 9 & 10 or 4 & 5)/ Number of survey respondents X 100.
When should you use the CSAT?
The CSAT is a metric that needs to be measured after a meaningful milestone or a touchpoint. For instance, you can ask the customer to take the survey after purchasing so you can identify possible issues.
Also, you can evaluate the quality of your customer service by sending a CSAT form after closing a support ticket. Additionally, you can reach out to customers after using a trial version of your product to see how much they liked it.
Pros
- The CSAT has fewer questions and, consequently, a higher response rate.
- It is pretty intuitive and straightforward to fill out for the user.
- You can use different rating scales, such as numeric ratings, emojis, stars, etc., based on your target audience.
Cons
- The CSAT primarily reflects the user’s short-term sentiment.
- There could be ambiguity regarding the scores being good or bad because of wide-ranging benchmark data across industries.
- Most customers don’t fill out surveys, which could lead to inaccurate results.
- It is prone to cultural bias.
4. NPS (Net Promoter Score)
The NPS indicates whether a customer will recommend your brand, product, or service to people they know. As part of an NPS survey, customers can rate whether they will promote/ refer you on a scale of 0 to 10.
- If your customer rating falls between 0 to 6, they are detractors who will share negative feedback about your brand with friends and colleagues, either in person or digitally.
- If the score is seven or eight, that means the customer is “passive,” meaning they are indifferent to your brand, service, or product.
- Customers who rate you 9 or 10 are promoters who will happily spread good things about your service to anyone willing to listen.
Note that your business’s net promoter score is obtained by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the promoters. As a brand, you must prioritize reaching out to your detractors and passives who will find it easy to switch to a competitor.
Why should you measure NPS?
You need to measure the NPS at the end of a buyer’s journey. You also must prioritize choosing neutral touchpoints to get an NPS score to ensure the buyer isn’t biased by their recent interaction with the brand.
Some instances where you can rely on NPS score are:
- After a PR crisis to measure brand perception
- After taking corrective steps post the PR crisis to see if your actions have yielded results
- After a significant change, such as a merger or a noticeable change in your products/ services
Pros
- It is easy to set up.
- It is easy to analyze due to using a single data point.
- You can use it to measure customer experience in different areas of your product offering.
- The NPS is a proven indicator of a company’s growth.
Cons
- NPS feedback can be influenced by how the questions are asked,
- NPS doesn’t account for the influence wielded by each promoter/ detractor.
- The score can be manipulated by asking only the happiest customers to fill out the survey.
- Sample sizes are sometimes relatively small.
- MPS doesn’t provide context for the scores.
- Getting results can take time.
5. UX-Lite
UX-Lite is used to get quick insights from users regarding a product’s usability and usefulness. This tracking is done using a simple two-item survey with a 7 or 5-point scale to gauge how strongly a user agrees or disagrees with the survey question.
When to use UX-Lite
UX-Lite is quite valuable, especially when you roll out new products and want to gauge the initial reactions to make real-time improvements quickly. It can also prove efficient when making changes to a particular part of the user experience, where you can use it to benchmark and determine necessary changes.
Pros
- It is easy to launch.
- It is beneficial for in-product surveys.
Cons
- The insights can be pretty limited.
Conclusion
UX is often thought of as challenging, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Choosing one or a combination of these five metrics as a starting point can go a long way in enriching your user experience. As you can see, each of the metrics has its pros and cons, which need to factor into your decision-making as a UX researcher.
Picking the right metric and applying it at the right time can go a long way in validating your research and demonstrating its impact. Additionally, quantifying qualitative sentiment can help you better understand your user’s experience, set benchmarks, and find optimal areas to allocate research funds.
Poll the People empowers UX researchers and product teams to initiate product surveys, A/B testing, and other impactful research across a user base of hundreds of thousands, yielding deep insights that can drastically improve user experience. If you are ready to start making better decisions with valuable UX metrics, sign up for Poll the People and start testing today!
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