Designing Optimal Digital Experiences’ Series: Part II
Understanding Online Behavior to Identify Interest & Bolster Engagement
Deltek recently released a Campaign report based on survey data from over 300 creative agencies that found that organizations that have embraced digital transformation have fared better in growing their databases, and 87% of respondents are in the process of evolving their digital systems or already have a mature system. Others are stagnating digitally and in danger of being left behind.
If your organization is among the 87% of those seeking to improve the digital systems you have in place to improve the prospects’ user experience, look at companies leveraging UX well. In this examination of Shopify’s success, we learn that:
Prospect-centric thinking is critical to effective journey design
User understanding and empowerment improves conversions
Partnering with providers your target audience uses makes YOU more attractive
If you’re ready to pivot your digital trajectory towards success, read on. The Adage Marketing Group knows what it takes to create a memorable customer journey – online and offline. We tirelessly review industry best practices and focus on distilling them into actionable insights so you can implement them right away. For personalized insights to take your community(ies) to the next level, we are here.
To make using your site a positive experience, you’ll need to understand the behavioral trends of your audience. Use available tools and strategies to help you collect data about your audience that will show YOU how THEY use the website. Data analysis is crucial to understanding your site’s strengths and improving the customer’s experience. Let’s break this down and examine some areas where UX design and audience go hand in hand.
Get a Fresh Perspective on Your Website
Looking at your site with fresh eyes may sound challenging – but not when you have the right tools! These can help you determine what’s working for you and what’s not. As you use these tools, keep the following tips in mind as you optimize your website for prospects:
Update users about changes.
Have identifiable ways for the user to exit if they misclick or want to undo an action.
Maintain consistency internally, from page to page, and externally, where it’s critical to have seamless offline/online branding.
Remove jargon, industry-specific terms, and technical terms that are not part of your user’s everyday vernacular.
Build in clear pathways to key information for your savvy users.
While these tips are just a handful of ways to view your site with renewed perspective, remember that websites are constantly evolving to serve their audience better. Keeping up with industry standards, updating your site, and thinking of new ways to make your site accessible and intuitive will keep you at the forefront of user experience. So how do you know the UX tools you’re using can help you check the points above?
Here’s an overview of commonly used tools for UX analysis from a leading industry source:
Product:Purpose:Price:Google AnalyticsMOST POPULAR! This free Google-powered tool provides a well-rounded dose of prescriptive and predictive analytics. Google Analytics helps you follow trends and understand user flows, however you’ll need to follow a tutorial to use it properly as sometimes it can be difficult to interpret the data without any prior knowledge of how it works.freeWoopraWoopra uses real-time data-driven analytics, allowing you to easily analyse different segments and funnels on your website. The tool generates customer segments that automatically change as user behaviour changes. Applying these segments and profiles, users are able to create funnel reports, custom reports and retention reports. free and up to $999/month) and enterprises (custom pricing).Appsee Appsee, now part of ServiceNow, is a tool that focuses specifically on mobile app analytics. This tool allows you to follow all user interactions in real-time, letting you see which aspects of your UI are intuitive and counter-intuitive for your users. The results appear in an easy-to-use dashboard, where you can visualise things like heatmaps, conversion funnels and crash-recordingsa free version and both premium and custom enterprise version.KeenKeen is a third-party application tool where you can collect and review all the events from your website, app, device or webstore. This tool has a dashboard which shows data in self-service reports. Keen makes analyses easier thanks to APIs that collect the data that you want. This helps you to find the right answers, which are all saved in the Cloud. This This tool uses ‘transparent pricing’ – in other words, you pay for what you use. So keep in mind that you have to pay more, the more you use it.ClickyClicky is a great tool for analysing web activities like downloads and pageviews. It register and reports these activities for you in a user-friendly dashboard – in real-time. It can even give you insights into Twitter statistics. If you upgrade to premium, you have access to other tools as well such as campaign & conversion tracking and heatmappingPricing varies from free to $19.99/month.
When using a UX tool, you can run a quick checklist to see if you’re using the more advantageous ones to your goals.
Is the tool user-friendly? If you’re having trouble using a UX tool because it’s not easy to use, then this may be taking up time and causing needless frustration. Choose tools that are easy to understand and allow others to see your work. Some may have collaborative aspects so your colleagues can review what you’re doing with ease.
Is this tool solving a problem? Look for programs that offer you report exporting to ensure you can communicate a challenge or track a new tactic.
Does this tool work with others? Integration between tools can smooth transitions between phases of testing and implementing changes on your site.
When you have UX tools that work for you, it’s time to use them to the best of your ability. A Visitor Behavior Analysis will combine essential points of data and measure them so you can get the best view of your site from your audience’s perspective.
You are likely familiar with ways to review the numbers on your site with tools like Google Analytics. You see where people are going, how long they’re staying on that page, where your page ranks, and more. While this data is valuable, a Visitor Behavior Analysis allows you to dig a little deeper into what your audience is doing.
You can see the customer journey they experience with your site. As you look at this journey, you can spot areas where you could improve the customer experience or a recurring error. These issues might not have been so apparent if you hadn’t been looking from your user’s perspective.
Along with your UX tools, your Visitor Behavior Analysis will examine your site through a website heatmap, recording user sessions, surveys, and form analytics. These all culminate into clear insight about what your audience experiences and does when they visit your site.
A heatmap will show you where your users engage the most and the least through a color scale. Here you can see the hot areas where users interact with and the areas that don’t hold their attention. Through a heatmap, you can determine which pages could improve and identify what’s making the hottest sections successful.
Recording user sessions will provide you with crucial information on how your audience is using your site. You may find areas that were most easy to navigate or find other pages where this wasn’t as clear.
You can also reach out directly to your audience with surveys. These provide you with their feedback–there’s no analyzing data and guessing what’s happening. As you’re getting survey feedback, this can serve as inspiration for what you can do to make your site more successful. A few ways you can present a survey include: having a widget on a page or a pop-up that the user triggers.
Form Analytics is another way to get direct feedback. You can learn about what’s working for users, what’s frustrating to them and use this data to find solutions. When you’re using a form, you need to make your purpose clear. Everything from the title to the instructions should be easy to understand.
Taking this 360 approach to seeing your audience’s perspective can provide you with essential information about your site. As you engage with what your users are doing, you can see how new visitors might interact with your site, identify issues, and fix them.
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