Utilizing behavioral and attitudinal knowledge in UX design

Making the best choice is difficult

Within the newest quarterly replace on the fictitious firm ClothezForU, Rebecca, the VP of product, learns in regards to the abysmal on-line gross sales numbers after a current redesign of the product show web page.

She sends off an e-mail to Tim, the product supervisor, to search out out what occurred. Tim instantly sends a Slack message to Deena, the info analyst, to drag the entire newest analytics to see what went unsuitable. Deena supplies an intensive report together with click-through charges, viewers segmentations, funnel path charts, and the outcomes of a current A/B take a look at.

Tim units up a Zoom name with all the product workforce to share the findings and decide a plan of action. Raj, the director of engineering, has all the time felt that the brand new design was defective as a result of the product pictures have been too excessive decision and impacted load time. Sally, the inventive director, was sure that the pictures didn’t symbolize sufficient range and doesn’t resonate with the target market. Keisha, the director of content material, steered that the product descriptions have been too verbose and have been lacking key data. Marvin, the UI designer, proclaimed that if they only made the add to cart button greater, customers would extra simply discover it.

This situation with the workforce at ClothezForU represents challenges that each product group faces when making selections that can have an effect on the consumer. Like many data-driven organizations, there’s a heavy reliance on measurable, quantitative knowledge tied to particular product KPIs. Sadly, these measurements solely present one facet of the expertise and don’t assist to grasp it from the consumer’s perspective.

Each design selection impacts the choices and perceptions that your customers have. Consumer analysis permits us to check hypotheses throughout each product improvement and post-launch. Analysis also can function a stable basis for understanding the wants of the goal persona and make sure that they’re high of thoughts when deciding not solely how to design the expertise however what to think about constructing within the first place.

In actuality, product design is each an artwork and a science, counting on an interpretation of consumer intent (aka “the why”) and actions (aka “the what”) primarily based on goal and subjective knowledge.

Behavioral knowledge: Understanding the “what”

What’s behavioral knowledge?

Behavioral knowledge refers to details about the actions that customers take whereas interacting with a services or products.

Within the context of UX design, behavioral knowledge can be utilized to grasp how customers work together with a product and what they do inside it. This may embody issues like how lengthy they spend on a specific web page, what buttons they click on on, and the way they navigate by means of the product.

By measuring these behaviors, designers and researchers can get a way of what’s and isn’t working effectively for customers, and make knowledgeable selections about how you can enhance the product.

Measuring the “what” in consumer expertise refers to understanding what customers do inside a product, quite than how they really feel about it or what they consider it. Whereas attitudinal knowledge (akin to surveys or interviews) can present priceless insights into customers’ ideas and emotions, behavioral knowledge can present a extra goal measure of how customers truly work together with the product.

By analyzing behavioral knowledge, designers and researchers can establish issues and alternatives for enchancment within the product, and make modifications to reinforce the consumer expertise.

How can a UX specialist use behavioral knowledge?

The workforce at ClothezForU already understood the worth of utilizing quantitative behavioral knowledge to guage their customers’ expertise. Capturing what the consumer is doing by means of behavioral knowledge is an goal measurement that isn’t open to interpretation (i.e., they both clicked or they didn’t click on).

Product groups are held to KPIs =primarily based on finish outcomes, together with the actions that the consumer takes (e.g., makes a purchase order, indicators up for an account, clicks on an commercial, and many others.). Efficiency metrics also can point out constructive or unfavourable tendencies akin to modifications in website visitors, bounce charges, and time spent on a web page.

Analytics can present a transparent baseline to measure the behaviors of how customers carry out sure duties akin to:

• Are they making errors akin to triggering an error message?
• Are they taking a less-than-optimal path to finish their job?
• Is it taking them quite a bit longer than anticipated to achieve their aim?
• Do they depend on educational parts akin to tooltips, walkthroughs, or video tutorials?

Consumer analysis strategies akin to A/B or multivariate testing might help to grasp the trigger and impact of sure design selections. For instance, Deena, the info analyst at ClothezForU, labored with Marvin, the UI designer, to find out if altering the scale of the add to cart button would have any important impression on the variety of occasions a consumer would click on on this button.

The ability of those metrics is in quantity. Behavioral knowledge collected from analytics platforms combination hundreds if not tens of millions of consumer actions to color a transparent image of what customers are doing with pattern sizes which are often statistically important.

In these conditions, A/B exams can clearly exhibit that modifications are having an precise impression on consumer actions. The elemental drawback with these exams is that they can’t decide with certainty what is definitely driving these actions.

This uncertainty is magnified by the variety of modifications which are made between variations. Within the scenario confronted by ClothezForU, their workforce made quite a few modifications to the web page as a part of a redesign. How would they know which modifications really influenced consumer habits and by how a lot?

Not all behavioral metrics are quantitative

Behavioral knowledge is commonly regarded as being solely quantitative, however it doesn’t must be. Qualitative insights may be gained by behavioral knowledge used to explain the actions that the consumer is performing and even in some circumstances what they’re seeing.

Observing particular person customers with session recordings

Many analytics platforms now supply the flexibility to seize recordings from every consumer session. These recordings may be replayed to see what interactions passed off together with a display seize of the web page, mouse actions and clicks, scrolling habits, and textual content entry. Product groups can then analyze these behaviors to achieve perception into what the consumer was doing as they have been finishing a job akin to:

• The place does their mouse cursor go as they discover the web page?
• Do they have an inclination to shortly scroll down the web page or do they spend most of their time on sure content material?
• Do they seem to vary their actions in response to what’s occurring on the display?
• What phrases are they typing into textual content fields? In what conditions do they revise what they’ve typed in?
• How do they reply to any errors whereas finishing a job?

Session replays are like sitting subsequent to a person whereas with the ability to observe as they work together together with your product however with out the flexibility to ask them questions on their expertise. This highly effective functionality permits us to establish trending behaviors which are frequent to particular person customers and can be utilized to probe deeper into the why behind these actions.

Utilizing eye-tracking expertise to see what the consumer sees

Extra superior consumer analysis strategies akin to eye-tracking enable us to see precisely what the consumer checked out as they work together with a product. Much like session replays, eye monitoring can file the consumer’s display and actions with a real-time overlay of their eye gaze. Understanding what the consumer does and what they take a look at generally is a very insightful mixture. Eye monitoring might help us to establish consumer behaviors akin to:

• What initially attracts their consideration and does it seem to affect their actions?
• What path do their eyes observe as they work together with the product?
• Do they look like visually engaged with sure areas of the web page? When do they lose consideration?
• When do they scan, skim, or truly learn the content material?
• What parts of the web page go utterly unnoticed?

The first methodology for qualitative eye monitoring evaluation is to observe the real-time eye motion recordings and manually code the noticed behaviors. Eye monitoring can also be able to quantitative knowledge insights primarily based on Areas of Curiosity (AOIs) the place particular areas of the web page are outlined to find out how often and the way lengthy customers checked out these areas.

Behavioral knowledge from eye monitoring is proscribed to offering insights primarily based on what the consumer was seeing and doing. For instance, eye monitoring can’t inform us why a consumer spent a very long time taking a look at a picture: is it as a result of they favored the picture, have been confused by it or discovered it repulsive?

Attitudinal knowledge: Understanding the “why”

What’s attitudinal knowledge?

Attitudinal knowledge refers to details about customers’ ideas, emotions, and opinions a few services or products.

Within the context of UX design, attitudinal knowledge can be utilized to grasp why customers really feel the way in which they do a few product, and what drives their behaviors and selections. This may be obtained by means of strategies akin to surveys, interviews, and focus teams during which customers are requested about their attitudes towards the product, in addition to their preferences, wants, and motivations.

Measuring the “why” in consumer expertise refers to understanding the underlying causes behind customers’ actions and behaviors. Whereas behavioral knowledge (akin to log knowledge or usability testing outcomes) can present priceless insights into what customers do inside a product, attitudinal knowledge might help designers and researchers perceive why they do it.

By analyzing attitudinal knowledge, designers and researchers can achieve a deeper understanding of customers’ motivations, wants, and preferences, and use this data to design merchandise that higher meet their wants and expectations.

Usability testing to grasp the consumer’s expertise

Over lunch, Deena vents to Rochelle the workforce’s consumer researcher in regards to the stress Tim is placing on the workforce to repair the product show web page format. Rochelle means that they conduct a usability take a look at to grasp the expertise from the consumer’s perspective.

Consumer expertise designers and researchers typically use qualitative strategies akin to usability testing to grasp their customers’ views. This type of analysis collects each behavioral and attitudinal knowledge knowledgeable by duties that the consumer makes an attempt to finish.

Throughout these research, members are inspired to suppose aloud to higher perceive what they’re pondering as they work together with the product. Usability testing might help to reply questions akin to:

• What are the consumer’s needs and desires?
• Why do they take (or not take) sure actions?
• What do they like or dislike?
• What do they discover complicated?

Usability exams assist us achieve a deeper understanding of the consumer’s psychological mannequin to optimize how they work together with a product. This type of analysis is usually performed in real-time with a facilitator conducting the session in an effort to probe primarily based on what they’re observing and listening to from the research members.

The restrictions of this method are that these are usually comparatively small pattern sizes and are additionally topic to the observer impact. Usability testing outcomes should not the easiest way to study if customers will truly replicate their actions when interacting with the product on their very own.

Measuring satisfaction with surveys

Understanding a consumer’s stage of and causes for satisfaction with an expertise is a vital a part of capturing the why. Knowledge on satisfaction is most insightful when it’s intently associated to a consumer’s most up-to-date and narrowly-focused habits.

At ClothezForU, the Voice of the Buyer (VOC) workforce has applied a satisfaction survey that’s triggered instantly after a buyer completes a purchase order. The metrics from the survey are intently watched and are repeatedly reported to the chief workforce throughout their quarterly reviews.

Such a post-experience survey is useful to grasp the consumer’s perspective on the general buy course of however doesn’t present an understanding of which particular facets contributed to their score.

One other sort of suggestions survey may be triggered by very particular consumer behaviors. For instance, the ClothezForU workforce may have introduced a brief survey to customers who’re viewing the product show web page after a set interval or instantly after they clicked on an motion to develop extra particulars in regards to the product.

There are lots of strategies for gathering attitudinal knowledge that may be primarily based on a bigger qualitative- and quantitative-focused knowledge assortment together with:

• In-app/web site suggestions varieties
• Submit-release surveys
• Social media teams/product discussion board posts
• Assist circumstances/name logs/shopper emails
• NPS surveys
• Standardized Usability Surveys (e.g. SUS, QUIS)

It is very important keep in mind that in distinction to behavioral knowledge, attitudinal knowledge is very subjective and topic to quite a few biases. Response sentiment can be closely weighted relying on whether or not the suggestions request is solicited (e.g., an intercept survey) or unsolicited (e.g., a consumer clicks on a Give Suggestions hyperlink).

The ability of attitudinal and behavioral knowledge mixed

The aim of understanding the what and why is to assist establish the basis causes of the actions that the consumer takes. Combining these methods permits groups to make knowledgeable selections primarily based on triangulated knowledge (not workforce member opinions).

Here’s a situation of how the ClothezForU workforce may have labored collectively to grasp each the what and the why to make an knowledgeable design choice:

1. The product workforce observed a major decline in on-line gross sales after redesigning the product show web page.
2. Members of the workforce that acquire each attitudinal and behavioral knowledge met to strategize on a holistic understanding of the customers’ expertise to share with the bigger product workforce.
3. The analytics workforce discovered that solely 15% of customers clicked to enlarge the product picture. Customers that clicked to enlarge have been 75% extra possible so as to add the merchandise to their procuring cart than those who didn’t enlarge the picture.
4. Findings from a usability take a look at discovered that the majority members didn’t notice that the product picture was clickable. There weren’t any visible affordances that indicated they may work together with it. Members have been anticipating a hover impact or an icon to point that they may click on to zoom in.
5. The Voice of the Buyer (VOC) workforce’s product show web page intercept survey outcomes discovered that respondents need to see a close-up picture of the product to find out its texture, high quality, and distinctive options. Additionally they need to see the product from totally different views and to have the ability to rotate the picture 360 levels.
6. The consumer expertise designer labored with a consumer researcher to conduct further rounds of usability testing to guage and iterate on a number of new design ideas with customers.
7. The workforce finalized the design after receiving constant constructive consumer suggestions throughout the design and analysis course of.
8. The product workforce launched a revised product web page and labored with the VOC workforce to introduce a brief focused survey that triggered for 10 % of their customers who interacted with the brand new product picture viewing characteristic.
9. The analytics workforce measured how the consumer engaged with the characteristic and reported on how typically interactivity resulted within the product being added to the consumer’s procuring cart.
10. The product workforce supplied the whole story to their executives about how they have been in a position to a) establish the explanations behind the poor gross sales efficiency, b) how they have been in a position to contain customers to grasp their wants and to validate a brand new design technique, and c) how they have been in a position to exhibit consumer behaviors and reactions after launching the brand new design.

With the intention to take a user-centered design method to product technique, groups ought to grow to be accustomed to the numerous strategies within the consumer analysis device package that help behavioral and attitudinal knowledge assortment.

Every methodology has strengths and weaknesses, and there’s no one proper method to using them. To get began with an summary of the commonest analysis strategies utilized in UX, I like to recommend studying Measuring the Consumer Expertise by Invoice Albert and Tom Tullis, and for a deeper dive into quantitative metrics, Quantifying the Consumer Expertise by Jeff Sauro and James Lewis.

Featured picture supply: IconScout