The Terminology Series
This post is the fourth part in the series Terminology of a UX/UI designer and you can find the previous article here.
The series aims to explain the basics of key concepts and discuss the differences and in what situations each concept is most useful. Thus it might be useful if you're just starting out in the field of UX/UI or if you have a client role and want to get a better understanding of what to expect as part of the process and delivery.
UX Survey
One of the simplest forms of feedback on your product is to provide non-invasive path to a survey. Here the user can give their anonymized and genuine feedback. The keys to successful UX surveys are to ask the right questions and a balanced amount of questions. Leading questions should be avoided and too few questions won’t give enough data while too many will lead to fewer completions.
A/B Testing
A decision between options is best made with data to back up the decision. We can measure the performance of two or more different options through A/B testing, also knows as split testing. It means to split your users, not necessarily 50/50, to different versions of the page or app view. The important part here is to only change one variable, such as the placement of an important CTA or the color of the ‘order now’ button, otherwise you can’t be sure which change potentially triggered a different result.
Heatmap
A heat map is a visual representation of the areas on your product that receive the most user attention. It’s displayed in a scale of warm-to-cool color spectrum to show where the users are interacting.
Clickstream Analysis
To make sure the users get the most value out of the product we want to optimize the clickstream, meaning the pages or views they visit and in which order. A clickstream analysis is the process of collecting this information to analyze these paths and evaluate where we can improve.
Session Tracking
Similar to Clickstream Analysis, but more focus on the actions than the pattern and how the time is spent. Measures such as;
- Task success rate - how many users actually complete their journey?
- Time-on-task - how much time is spent in order to complete a task?
- Search vs navigation - how many users are searching instead using the menu?
- User error rate - what errors occur and where?
Error Analysis
From the session tracking we should gain insight to the user error rate and then we can analyze the frequency and type of errors and most importantly, what we can do to prevent them from occurring.
Conversion Rate
How many of the visitors are actually taking action to order, book or contact (or whichever other action may be relevant)? That is the conversion rate. By increasing our conversion rate, we lower the cost per customer acquisition, i.e. we spend less budget to get more value. Analyzing through the above methods to optimize this rate is of utmost importance to improve post-launch.
Interested in more UX/UI terminology?
In case you missed our previous articles in this series, you can learn more about the UX/UI deliverables, about the UX process or about the User Interface.
Need any help or want to discuss UX/UI with us?
If you're interested to hear more about us, want to work with us or just want to have a conversation about UX/UI or any of our other fields, feel free to reach out to me or my colleagues.