11 essential UX metrics to improve user experience
Discover how to measure user experience, make data-driven UX improvements, and show ROI for your business.
If you care about enhancing your customer experience (CX), you must pay attention to your user experience (UX).
UX is a critical branch of CX because a bad user experience will leave you with unhappy customers. Unhappy customers don’t stick around.
So how do you prioritize and improve user experience? It starts with tracking UX metrics to make data-driven enhancements.
In this guide, we’ll break it all down:
- What you need to know about attitudinal and behavioral metrics
- The UX metric examples that are most valuable
- How to show the ROI of UX updates and more
What is user experience (UX)?
User experience (UX) is how people interact with or experience your product, app, or website. Have you made it easy and intuitive for users to solve a problem or fulfill a need? Or are they stuck in a frustration loop?
User experience vs. digital experience vs. user interface
User experience is part of the bigger CX ecosystem, including the digital experience (DX) and user interface (UI).
Digital experience is all the interactions a customer has with an organization via digital touchpoints—website, app, social media, etc.—and the feelings or perceptions the customer has about those interactions.
User interface is every element impacting user interaction on a device, website, or app. This encompasses buttons, icons, spacing, typography, responsive design, and more.
Here’s how CX, UX, and DX overlap:
Related: How to use UX surveys to test ideas
What are UX metrics?
UX metrics are quantitative and qualitative datapoints showing the quality of people’s interactions with your product, app, or website. You can use them to measure, compare, and track the effectiveness of your UX design strategy.
Why do we measure UX?
A great user experience results in more satisfied users, higher conversion rates, and fewer technical issues—which reduces business costs in the long run.
On their own, UX metrics are user-focused, not business-focused. But what’s good for the user is good for the business. For example, UX could play a big role if your business aims to improve customer retention and loyalty. A user experience that’s easy and pleasant is an experience that will spark brand advocates and repeat customers.
Types of UX metrics: Behavioral vs. attitudinal
There are two major types of UX metrics: behavioral and attitudinal. Understanding the difference comes down to whether you’re measuring the behavior of a user (e.g., how long it took users to complete a task) or the attitude of a user (e.g., how confident users felt as they navigated the task.)
Behavioral UX metrics
Behavioral metrics are typically quantitative and measure the actions users take when they interact with your product. How often do users use your mobile app? How long does it take? What pages do they view?
You can often track behavioral metrics automatically, without intervening with the user experience, through site/app analytics, user session data, bug reviews, and more. However, this only provides one piece of the UX equation. While you might see data that shows that the experience broke down, you won’t know why, how the user felt about it, or what impact it had on them. That’s where attitudinal metrics come in.
Attitudinal UX metrics
Attitudinal metrics measure how users feel and what they say about your product. Do users think your app is easy to navigate? Do they find your website useful? How satisfied are they with the quality of your checkout experience?
Attitudinal metrics can b