Talk given at Measurefest 2017 at The British Library

1. Analytics for
User Research

2. • Conversion Services Director at Fresh Egg
• 18 years working agency side and in-house
• UX Camp Brighton organiser
• Runs UX Brighton workshops
• Author of Researching UX: Analytics
About me

3. “This is the perfect book for getting you
up to speed with analytics. Too often I
spend hours lost in the various software
suites chasing myself down rabbit-holes
and never quite sure if I'm finding the
right numbers — this book has helped
me avoid this.
If you're looking to make actionable UX
decisions based on an accurate
understanding of your website visitors,
you can't go wrong.”
- Amazon Review
Researching UX: Analytics

4. “This is the perfect book for getting you
up to speed with analytics. Too often I
spend hours lost in the various software
suites chasing myself down rabbit-holes
and never quite sure if I'm finding the
right numbers — this book has helped
me avoid this.
If you're looking to make actionable UX
decisions based on an accurate
understanding of your website visitors,
you can't go wrong.”
- Amazon Review
Researching UX: Analytics

5. UX and Analytics…
Analytics for user research

6. What is UX?
UX, sometimes referred to as User
Design, is simply the process of
something based on a strong
the people who use it.
UX and Analytics

7. An Analytics First
approach
When it comes to UX you need both
quant…
UX and Analytics

8. UX and Analytics

9. UX and Analytics

10. UX and Analytics
Analytics first
Your analytics can be used to inform
your design in two main ways:
1. Finding potential problem areas
by analysing page performance
and user journeys
2. Giving insight for the user
research process…

11. Analytics for user research…
Analytics for user research

12. User research
• Finding out who your users are and
want
• Finding out their goals and needs
• Finding out what people do, not just
Analytics for user research

13. What data?
There are various types of data that you
can use to help with your research
• Location & Language
• Demographics
• Browsers & Devices
• Frequency & Recency
• Time of day
• Traffic Source
• Benchmarking
Analytics for user research

14. Countries
Visitors from different countries may
have different cultures and contexts
• less than 2 percent of people living
credit cards
• 58% of German shoppers pay by
online purchases
• 95 percent of emerging markets
250MB of data per month
• White space and minimalism is
west, but less so in other cultures
Analytics for user research

15. Demographics
Google Analytics will tell you, with an
80% - 90% degree of accuracy, the
genders and ages of your users
• Look at differences in user behaviour
number of visits
• Useful for user recruitment for
etc
• Can be used to report back on other
on this later…
Analytics for user research

16. Browsers and Devices
Useful for more than just technical
implementation
• Don’t rely on stereotypes
• Higher income households are more
times as likely to have a tablet than
households
• Android users are more likely to use
on the toilet than their iPhone
77%)
• Mobile does not mean ‘on the move’
assumptions
Analytics for user research

17. Frequency and Recency
How often people engage with your
website can give you great insight
• Look at the difference in behaviour
and returning visitors
• Break users into groups of single
visits and regular visits
• Are users buying on their first visit?
buying on the same day as the first
second or third visit?
Analytics for user research

18. Time of visits
Find out when people are looking at
your website to get more context
• Time reports are notoriously hard to
Google Analytics
• Time of day can indicate likely
office, commuting to work, at home
• This can give some more context and
different behaviours
Analytics for user research

19. Traffic source
Find out when people are looking at
your website to get more context
• Which channel people come from can
something about their intent
• Visits that come via Paid Search will
keyword information
• Users arriving via campaigns, such as
marketing, will already be familiar
Analytics for user research

20. Benchmarking
See how your site squares up to your
competitors
• Benchmarking reports are available
Analytics; they aim to compare your
similar sites
• Not as useful as they could be, but
uses
• Good for comparing device type
more on this later…
Analytics for user research

21. Internal search
A search box on your website could be
a goldmine of useful data…
• Most analytics packages allow you to
usage and search terms
• There are two types of search;
content on your site, and searches
content
• Searches will tell something about
intent
Analytics for user research

22. How to use your data…
Analytics for user research

23. Usability testing recruitment
Usability testing is key to a successful website, app or product
• Demographic information will give a good indication of who your
• Device information will show you what devices you should run your
• Country information should also feed into your recruitment
Using your data

24. Persona creation
Data from your analytics can help you to create personas
• Use a mixture of research methods to create your personas, analytics
• Data alone will not give you all the answers, and following data blindly
• Personas can be used for segments to use to analyse the behaviour of
Using your data

25. Stakeholder justification
Sometimes convincing clients or other stakeholders is the hardest part
of UX
• Use data from your analytics to back up your argument
• Some stakeholders are more interested in the quant than the qual
• Sometimes clients just love to see graphs!
Analytics Using your data

26. Case studies…
Analytics for user research

27. Gender balance
Case studies
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5
Male
Female

28. Gender balance
Case studies
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5
Male
Female

29. Different user groups
Case studies

30. Device breakdown
Case studies
Jobs board client

31. OUTLINE OF WORK PROPOSED

32. Device breakdown
Case studies
Your website

33. International differences
Case studies
Centre Center
Recognise Recognize
Colour Color

34. Personalisation
Case studies
Tinyurl.com/FEpersonal

35. Summary and tips…
Analytics for user research

36. Summary and tips
Broaden your skillset
Spend some time learning about UX…
There are lots of resources to help you
get to grips with user research and UX.
Plenty of excellent websites and books
(including my one!). Training is also a
good option.

37. Summary and tips
Don’t just ask people questions
Fact beats opinion…
Asking users, or clients, what they want
is not often the best way to go about
your user research. Use cold hard (and
accurate!) data to gain more insight
into what’s really happening.

38. Summary and tips
Use your data for user research
You have the data, now put it to good
use…
User research is crucial to creating
great user experiences. Feed in to
qualitative methods, and use your
quantitative data skills to help inform
how to go about running that research.

39. Stay in touch…
Thanks for listening
Stay in touch…
luke.hay@freshegg.com
www.freshegg.com
01903 285900
@freshegg
@hayluke