Within the multidimensional layers of the digital world, the dissection of data is a fundamental part in determining the fault lines and strong suits of a website or mobile application. Data has become an incredibly vital resource in determining how to strengthen a user’s experience based on data driven design. The data that is gathered by developers enables both qualitative and quantitative information to then be sourced with implementation strategies that work best for a set of users.
Every minute detail from a user’s interaction with a website holds an immense amount of significance, such as what pages are clicked on, how much time is spent on a particular page, the movement of a trackpad, and even items in one’s shopping cart. These details allow for critical insight on user journeys and even design decisions. Say, for example, there is a pattern of data that implies that users do not linger long on a particular page of a website as long as they do for others. This unbiased information can indicate that perhaps the design elements or the layout does not allow for ease when browsing, and thus encourages web developers and strategists to update their interface.
Not only is data vital for user experience, but it can offer a plethora of details for e-commerce approaches. Data can track customer spending habits and preferences, and paying attention to these brand interactions generate conversions of users as well as informing a company on what portions of their interface creates the most revenue with their marketing techniques.
Key Factors to Assess
The valuable information that data holds begs the question, what are the best ways to collect and extract this information, and what exactly should one be searching for within that array of insight? There is a myriad of tools, software programs, and services—such as Google Analytics, that allow companies to zone in on the ways users interact with their website. Although there are tools that allow for immediate results and statistics, a potent technique to truly observe data is by allowing a software to run over the course of a few months to truly capture patterns and trends over time.
Moreover, the key details that should be analyzed within these software programs are the best approaches to gathering data. A significant aspect to investigate upon data collection is website errors. That dreaded 404 page can suggest the weak points of your webpage and broken links that are interrupting a user’s experience. Tracking the number of instances a user ran into an error is helpful in the update process and can create a seamless experience that will encourage users to return.
Another detail to ensure the best data collection is observing the bounce rates of your users. Bounce rates represent the number of users who leave a website immediately before performing other actions, or browsing other pages within. Examining if your webpage attains a high bounce rate can be telling of not only UI/UX designs, but how those also affect conversions. Collecting data that pinpoint conversions can be observed with the statistics of where a user decided to leave a particular page, or if they left with or without conversion to your website. This can be studied by viewing the percentage of people who filled out a contact form, engaged with a page’s call-to-action (CTA), or signed up with an email to obtain an account.
Software tools like Google Analytics are further useful in determining how well-functioning a webpage’s search engine optimization (SEO) is. Data tools showcase how a person initially landed on your website, and it is a strong detail to analyze because it demonstrates if a webpage’s SEO needs to be strengthened. An updated SEO can occur if a webpage is updated regularly, attains purposeful tags, and links. This data can further allow a webpage to understand if a user arrived on your page through a search engine, or through another website.
Not only is the importance of examination of webpage data vital, but collecting information on applications for mobile users is an equally important counterpart. Studying mobile application analytics along with user engagement and conversion rates demonstrates if your webpage translates seamlessly into a mobile interface. If there is a low download rate for an application, it can be inferred that perhaps there are tweaks that need to be implemented. Mobile applications are the connecting limbs to a webpage since people are much more prone to use their mobile devices, and thus the translation from webpage interface to mobile needs to be a seamless transition. Analyzing the data on how often an application is opened, can determine if that application was able to achieve that transition successfully.
Data is a great indicator for how a webpage or app functions, as well as a vital source for understanding how users are navigating through internal pages. Examining the significant elements of that data has a lot of insight to offer.