User Experience is a term that gets thrown around a lot these days as the solution to your website conversion problems. In this blog post I’m going to share with you the number #1 tool that I use to evaluate User Experience on my client websites.
Now running through a UX process can take some time and there are quite a few tools readily available for you, these are usertesting.com, Invision app, balsamic and UXpin; my number one tool for doing UX research is absolutely free and it’s something you probably have already.
Yes, my number one tool is Google Analytics.
In fact Google Analytics (GA) is the first thing I look at when you become a client of mine (if you have it). It allows me to find out exactly what your current UX persona is and where your UX issues lie.
If you have your own Google Analytics account, check it out yourself. Below I’ll list 3 top things I look for when doing my UX review and research of your website.
-
Persona
If you thought you had an idea of who your customers are, then take a look at the ‘Demographics’ section under the ‘Audience’ section. It allows you get an idea of sex, age and location of your target audience and better target those customers in your marketing and messaging.
Sometimes clients realise that their ‘ideal’ client or customer is totally off of who is actually visiting their website. If so, this would be a great opportunity to take a look at the wording and design of your website to understand why you’re not getting your target audience or persona.
-
User Behaviour Flow
Under the ‘Behaviour’ tab, there is a section called ‘Behaviour flow’, this is KEY to understanding how users navigate through your website. In the UX process – mapping out how users should navigate your website is key to understanding how users from ‘A’ (landing page) to ‘B’ (Conversion page).
You’ll also see something called the ‘bounce rate’ which is where users leave your site after the first visit on a page. As you can see in the diagram below, my site has a high bounce rate (massive red arrow down) to indicate users are leaving after reading a particular post. The ultimate reason being is, that’s it’s unrelated to the rest of my website. I’m completely aware of this and understand that killing this post also means removing a huge chunk of traffic, so rather than remove it, a solution may be to monetise it with a related product or entice them to click another page.
-
User Devices
To be able to understand your audience environment it’s a good start to be able to see what type of devices they’re likely to be on. If you find that your bounce rate is higher on mobile devices, find out ways to improve the experience on your site. Maybe the text is too small to read, maybe the form is too long and difficult to fill out on a phone. Whatever it is, find out more about your users is a great way to craft the best experience for their needs.
As you can see on the left-hand bar, there are quite a few options to choose from in the Google Analytics dashboard. If you have a website and have access to Analytics, ensure you check it out regularly to also be able to view results of marketing, SEO, and user experience strategies that maybe you’ve hired others to do for you.
Another quick tip is that google has just come out with GA Assistant which you can download on your mobile and check whenever you need. Perfect when you’re in business meetings and need to have data at your fingertips.
You and download it on the app store or on Google play. So there you go, my number one tool for evaluating user experience.
Like that post? Sign up to my newsletter to get only the best in websites, marketing, seo and user experience tips straight to your inbox. Oh, and I also offer discounted access to my online courses.
Stay informed,
