A UX Designer’s core objective is to improve the quality of user interactions and increase overall user satisfaction with a product or service. The interaction elements are primarily qualitative in nature, and it is a part of your role profile to enhance them continually. But, managing and measuring just the qualitative aspects of user experience is not enough. In UX design practice, we need to quantify those outcomes in some way to measure and improve them. It is nearly impossible to manage something which is not measured. Therefore, a right set of UX KPIs needs to be defined to understand exactly how users are using your product, what they are doing, and how they feel while using your product.

What are UX KPIs?

KPIs depict the success factors of your project or company into numbers; they highlight successes and failures. The performance indicators generally vary from project to project and must always be determined individually. UX KPIs are different from other KPIs in that they have the difficult task of translating human behaviour, opinions and feelings into numbers. They are broadly classified into two categories – Behavioural UX KPIs (what they do) and Attitudinal UX KPIs (what they say).

Before we deep dive into the most important UX KPIs to measure, let us understand the reasons for measuring these KPIs.

UX KPIs: Stakeholder Management

KPIs assist you in communicating your UX issues and the related strategic goals more successfully to your company’s relevant decision-makers. Instead of vague and qualitative arguments, you can base your arguments on hard-hitting facts and figures. Reliable data makes it much easier to put forward arguments when it comes to establishing the annual UX budget.

UX KPIs: UX Benchmarking

UX KPIs act as a robust business navigation tool that can protect you from taking any wrong turns and wasting your precious time and money. Moreover, UX data also allows you to benchmark your project compared to internal or external reference data sources, like competitors, and find out where you still have some gaps to fill.

UX KPIs: Alarm System

UX KPIs substantially reduce the complexity of large sets of data and provide fast and accurate information about your product’s actual status. UX KPIs act as essential parameters that could quickly determine whether something is wrong and requires intervention.

Different projects with different goals need specific UX KPIs that need to be measured. However, the following 5 UX KPIs are the most common and important ones. These KPIs can reflect user behaviour and indicate potential usability and user experience issues.

1. Task Completion Rate

Also known as task success rate, this metric denotes the percentage of users who successfully complete a task. It’s a useful metric because it shows how effectively users can complete a particular task. The task depends on your product, and it can be as simple as users filling up a form. As long as the task created is realistic, with a well-defined goal, you’ll be able to measure the success rate.

Not all users would complete the task successfully. Task success won’t give you details about why users failed. However, for sure, if they can’t finish the task, it means there’s serious friction in the user flow, which demands your immediate attention. If you’re using a usability testing tool to perform usability tests, you can see where users got stuck by looking at the heat-maps.

2. Time On Task

One of the key KPIs to measure is the time taken by users to complete the tasks? There are different ways to measure the time taken; UX designers most commonly look at and report the Average Time on Task. It is the total amount of time users are spending on a specific task. All tasks, except the ones that are meant to keep users engaged, a long task time highlights issues while interacting with the product’s interface.

As a rule of thumb, the lesser time people spend on a task, the better is their experience. The time on task data can be used to reduce the number of steps a user needs to take to complete the task successfully. If you can show that your design changes reduce the time taken by users to complete a task, the development and business teams will quickly see the impact and the ROI of user experience design.

3. User Error Rate

The number of times users make a wrong entry is represented by the User Error Rate (UER). It gives you an idea of how user-friendly and clear your website is; higher the UER score, higher the number of usability problems. Again, it is critical to define in advance which actions represent an error. Error rates can give you valuable insight into where your weak points are; the design can be then optimised accordingly to reduce the number and frequency of errors.

4. Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) in UX KPIs

The CSAT is an attitudinal UX KPI that expresses customer satisfaction in a useful metric. Users are asked: How satisfied you are with the product, service, website, etc.? The result is shown as a percentage from 0 to 100, where 100 denotes maximum customer satisfaction, and 0 denotes utter dissatisfaction. The scale generally includes five rating options, ranging from very satisfied to very dissatisfied. 

Since the CSAT score can be determined easily and quickly, it is also possible to measure it at several customer interaction points. This method allows you to decide the point in the funnel at which the customer might be stuck. 

CSAT: Number of satisfied customers / Number of respondents x 100 = % of satisfied customers

The results can then be classified into 5 categories:

• Very Satisfied
• Satisfied
• Neutral
• Dissatisfied
• Very dissatisfied

*To calculate the CSAT score, only satisfied and very satisfied responses are counted.

5. Net Promoter Score (NPS) in UX KPIs

NPS illustrates customer satisfaction and loyalty in a straightforward metric. Studies have confirmed that the NPS is statistically relevant and co-relates with a company’s growth. The user answers only one key question through which the NPS is calculated – how likely is it that you will recommend our (product, brand, service, website, etc.) to a colleague or a friend? The user answers this question on a scale of 10 (very likely) and one (very unlikely). The answers are then clubbed into 3 main categories (NOte: the ‘passives’ are not taken into account in the calculation)

• Promoters: 9 to 10
• Passives: 7 to 8
• Detractors: 0 to 6

NPS: (Number of promoters – number of detractors) ÷ (number of respondents) x 100 

Wrap Up

The right UX KPIs enable you to quantify your progress through design towards delivering meaningful user experiences. You will also be able to understand the impact and the ROI of design changes. Need more info? Talk to our experts now!

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