Leveraging UX Analysis to Enhance User Flow: Part 2
In Part 1 of the Leveraging UX Analysis to Enhance User Flow series, we considered the importance of user engagement and user perceptions in improving user experience across high-profile apps showcased on UILand. This time, we’ll provide an adaptable framework to perform UX analysis for the purpose of improving user flow.
UX Analysis Helps to Resolve User Flow Problems
UX analysis usually becomes a consideration when users submit negative reviews on a product. This often happens on app stores. But there are other forms of undesirable feedback, such as:
Poor performance from user testing exercises
Bad results from usability analysis
Suboptimal data in user analytics
These are usually indicators that the user flow needs to be investigated, and a UX analysis can help to identify possible solutions
How often should your team conduct UX analysis?
To keep abreast of evolving user needs and preferences, UX teams must schedule regular UX analysis. The aim is to track changes in user behavior and surface opportunities for improvement.
Since user experience analysis should be routine, they are especially imperative after significant product updates. This is to ensure that the overall user flow was not impacted in a significant way.
Such usability regression testing bears similarity with regression testing performed on software after a release. The objective in that scenario is to ensure that existing features continue to work as they did prior to the current release.
Preparation for UX Analysis
UX analysis can be tricky by itself! What’s probably more challenging is selecting the right user segments to analyze within a flow. One common approach is to compare the two common segments of new users and returning users.
The process involves listing out the following for each segment:
Unique goals
Use cases
Preconceptions
This step needs to be supported with robust user research. You may observe data analytics results or refer to prior usability studies for this purpose.
Choosing the Right Success Metrics
The step after preparation is to decide on a success metric to analyze. Leverage user data analytics from platforms such as Google Analytics or MixPanel. Assess the conversion rates from one step to the next. The point of interest includes obvious “bounce” or drop-offs from one screen to the next.
It’s important to determine the desired outcome, which could be lower form abandonment, reduced cart abandonment, higher click-through on ads, or increased resource downloads. Conversion or drop-off rates can be written between each screenshot to reveal the biggest improvement opportunities within the user flow. This metric will inform the design team’s approach to validating any hypothesis formulated through the UX analysis process.
Things are starting to look interesting at this point. In Part 3 of this series, we’ll consider primary use cases and other UX analysis elements that can enhance user flows. UILand features thousands of screens and user flows continuously made better by UX teams leveraging the power of data.
