Love Metrics
a program to measure UX contribution
Context
UX leaders everywhere are struggling to establish a foothold in the corridors of corporate power. I believe, if UX can show how creating user-centric design contributes to revenue targets in a measurable way, then design leaders will get a seat at the table. Often, we try and build tenuous links of the impact of UX to business metrics. UX alone cannot positively impact net new revenue or retention. So business leaders, don’t quite buy our stories and the value of UX is unclear.
Instead, as Jared Spool suggests, research teams can help uncover what are the drivers of value which help a user achieve their goals. Then establish which of those drivers of value UX can impact . The team can then show how customers and users who receive the intended UX improvements for those drivers of value will also help achieve desired business outcomes.
A simple example we adopted at McAfee (a B2C product) was: focusing on a user goal (user’s felt more confident about their security) rather than a business outcome (users renewed more). In B2B businesses, the value might be derived from productivity enhancers and UX might focus on improving adoption and usage of workflow automation and AI assistance.
I have outlined the story of establishing a UX contribution measurement program in McAfee.
Approach
Established a user experience metrics program to capture the state of usability over time. Focused on measuring experiences delivering top user goals. We hoped UX metrics (such as engagement with features users valued) would be treated as leading indicators for product and business outcomes (renewal, upsell).
Securing a program sponsor: McAfee’s Head of UX agreed to be our sponsor and advocate for driving broader organizational buy-in for adopting this approach to tracking UX metrics.
Defining a success state: We agreed a successful outcome would be achieved when there was a program to measure usability status for 2 critical user goals which UX was delivering + a way to drive accountability for owning action.
Set up
Created a simple framework on how we could link UX contribution to user’s achieving their goals. We decided we would measure touchpoints where a user is likely to engage and fall deeply in love with the value a product provides, so s/he will re-engage.
Over time, we proposed building a model using behavioural analytics data. We hoped the model would show that users who engage with specific touchpoints are more likely to pay for our product than the users who do not engage with those touchpoints.
In this way, we could establish investing in UX made good business sense.
Operationalize
Ran multiple workshops with analysts and influencers from different functions.
A core team was established to create a dashboard tracking key UX touchpoints along the path to a business outcome. The initiative became part of the product roadmap, to be built out as an internal tool.
Monitor
The Core team came up with 5 metrics we agreed would predict business outcomes. The 'Golden 5' metrics were the early indicators of business results.
These metrics were included in the Executive dashboard.
Golden 5 for Executive Dashboard: show how UX metrics contribute to business results
Outcome
A quick win demonstrated how solving UX issues early on in the customer’s journey would allow more users to enter the top of the purchase funnel. (See the slide alongside for the example)
After fixing the problems over several sprints, in 3 months, we saw a jump in the number of users setting up and subscribing.
