UX KPIs and ROI

1. Better usable products:
   Optimising the user experience doesn't just boost user satisfaction. Costs can also be reduced. Mozilla, for instance, managed to cut support calls by 90 percent through UX testing and the resulting product improvements (Nielsen Norman Group, 2015). Usability optimisations reduced user errors on an e-commerce site by 90 percent (Karat, 2005).

2. Increasing conversions and revenue:
   Investment in user experience pays off. A study by Oracle (2012) shows that 85 per cent of users would pay 25 per cent more for a positive customer experience. Through the targeted use of UX methods, Hanseatic Bank was able to increase the conversion rate of credit card applications by 107 per cent (m-pathy.com/de, 2016).

3. Reducing development effort:
   The time required for changes nearly doubles with every project phase. Early involvement of UX can reduce costly adjustments later on. UX methods simplify decision-making and help prioritise tasks for development. Unimportant features never even get developed. A study by Experience Dynamics (2014) shows that input from a UX designer can save developers 33 to 50 percent of working time.

ROI and KPIs show how successfully a company has achieved certain goals. ROI is a purely financial metric. To assess individual investments, a variant of ROI is often used today that shows return on UX measures relative to investment. For example, ratio of costs for optimising an order funnel to revenue growth from fewer drop-offs.

ROI of user experience is viewed on two levels: UX activities during ongoing operations create additional effort, which however pays off through improved metrics. In the development process, on the other hand, considering UX from the start brings savings, e.g. through efficient alignment and optimisation of a prototype, or targeted prioritisation of tasks. 

KPIs (key performance indicators) are the central factors used to measure the effect of UX measures at different levels. They reflect business goals such as revenue growth, increasing user numbers or reducing support call volume. How UX measures affect KPIs is measured using UX metrics. UX KPIs and metrics are defined individually – based on the specific targets derived from a company's strategic and commercial goals.

UX metrics can be divided into behavioural and attitudinal, relating to the behaviour and the attitude of users respectively. The former are based on what users do in user tests or live on the website, attitudinal UX metrics are based on user statements. Together, they can paint a multi-layered picture of the quality of the user experience.

Measuring KPIs and calculating ROI is useful for several reasons. These metrics help embed UX within the organisation and raise UX maturity. They can also strengthen acceptance and understanding of UX more generally. Acceptance and understanding of UX can be strengthened overall. They enable an objective view of developments and prevent decisions being made on opinion alone.

The metrics serve stakeholder management. They help position UX topics and related strategic goals with decision-makers. Figures and facts prove how sensible and effective a UX team's measures are. That makes them good, effective arguments when allocating budget.

KPIs are useful for UX benchmarking. They can indicate the direction (further) development should take. The data also enables comparison with internal or external benchmarks.

Not least, KPIs can also act as an early warning system. By reducing the complexity of large data volumes, they act as a pulse check for digital offerings. This allows problems or deteriorations on a website or in a specific area to be identified and fixed early.

For KPIs to be effective and manageable, you should limit yourself to a few, well-suited ones. They must be aligned with the respective goals and plans. Metrics can relate to an entire digital offering or to individual areas and features.

Google's HEART framework and the goals-signals-metrics process can help when choosing the right metrics. The framework describes the quality of user experience across the categories happiness, engagement, adoption, retention and task success. This helps decide which categories are useful for the intended evaluation and which aren't. In the goals-signals-metrics process, a product's goals are defined and the corresponding signals identified. Signals indicate whether and how well the defined goals are being achieved. Finally, the specific metrics that measure and track these signals are determined. In collaboration with Google Ventures, Telepathy put this approach together nicely based on an article by Kerry Rodden.

Selected metrics and what they measure

Task Success Rate

The task success rate indicates how successfully users achieve their goal. It measures the percentage of correctly completed tasks. It can only be measured if a goal can be clearly defined, such as filling in a form.

Time on Task

This metric describes how long users need to complete a task successfully. The shorter the processing time, the better the user experience usually is.

User Error Rate

The user error rate quantifies all unintended actions and errors that users make during a task. The score helps identify comprehension and usability problems.

Conversion Rate

The conversion rate indicates the share of users who carry out a defined action. This can be a product purchase, a download, a newsletter registration or a contact request.

Exit or bounce rate

Keeping an eye on where users leave or immediately bounce off a page allows you to react early. These metrics are helpful indicators for uncovering problems at important points within a digital offering and fixing them promptly.

Frequently used questionnaires or indices 

Net Promoter Score

The NPS is a measure of customers' willingness to recommend, or their loyalty. Based on how likely they are to recommend a digital offering, customers are divided into detractors (rather/unlikely), passives and promoters (very likely). The NPS expresses the difference between promoters and detractors relative to the number of respondents.

System Usability Scale

The SUS is a simple questionnaire that users use to rate the usability of a digital offering. The resulting SUS score ranges from 0 to 100. An offering with good usability should reach a score of at least 68. With a lower result, specific usability problems should be identified urgently and optimisation measures taken.

Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is decisive for a company's success and growth. CSAT makes it measurable and comparable. Users rate on a 5-point scale how satisfied they are with a digital offering, product, service etc. The CSAT score shows the share of satisfied customers among all respondents.

Single Ease Question

The SEQ measures perceived difficulty. It is often asked during user tests but can also be collected live on a website. Users rate on a scale how easy they found a particular task.

AttrakDiff

With AttrakDiff or AttrakDiff mini, users rate the operation and appearance of an interactive offering. The instrument measures how “desirable” an interactive offering is.

UX Questionnaire

This questionnaire captures a comprehensive picture of the user experience. Users rate classic usability aspects such as efficiency and controllability as well as user experience aspects such as originality and stimulation.

Especially in companies with high UX maturity, disciplines such as user experience, customer experience, and also SEO and web analytics are converging further. Usage experiences on digital touchpoints must also be considered in the context of the overall customer experience. The interdependence of the disciplines is increasing. Close collaboration and lively exchange between departments will therefore become more important for business success in future. A sensibly designed tracking setup can be a helpful means of keeping regular exchange going.

The goals and metrics overlap, the disciplines learn from and benefit from one another. UX metrics also allow conclusions about the quality of the overall customer experience. Creating good user experiences has a positive effect on search engine rankings and the traffic that comes with it. By taking search intent into account – a clustering by which Google categorises search queries – the UX of landing pages can be improved. UX metrics and figures from web analytics can complement each other and provide explanatory approaches.

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