You're striving to enhance user experience. How do you combine analytics and research for impactful insights?

We start by analyzing the behavior of current users. We utilized tools like Clarity and Google Analytics to examine key factors such as time on pages, conversion rates, exit pages, and heat maps. In Clarity, user session recordings are particularly useful, allowing us to analyze the actions users take and the steps they follow. Next, we gather both quantitative and qualitative data through various research methods to understand why users behave in a certain way and to uncover their deeper needs. By combining the insights obtained, we formulate hypotheses for improvement and conduct usability tests to determine whether we have effectively addressed users' needs.

To enhance user experience, I combine analytics and research by using data to both identify areas for improvement and validate design decisions. I start with analytics to spot patterns, like drop-off points or low engagement areas. Then, I dig deeper with qualitative research—interviews, surveys, or usability tests—to understand the "why" behind the numbers. By pairing quantitative data with qualitative insights, I get a complete picture that helps me prioritise the most impactful changes. It’s all about balancing what users are doing with why they’re doing it, leading to data-driven and user-centered design solutions.

UX analytics is essential for understanding user behavior and making data-driven decisions. By tracking key metrics and analyzing user interactions, you can identify areas for improvement and optimize your product design.

By leveraging UX analytics, we can gain a wealth of insights into how users interact with our products, including: - Quantitative data: numbers of visitors, users, and retention rates - Behavioral data: heat maps, funnel analysis, and session recordings - Journey mapping: understanding the user's path through our product These data points provide a solid foundation (not the whole picture) for drawing conclusions about user behavior, identifying pain points, and informing design decisions. With UX analytics, we can: - Identify areas of friction and drop-off points - Optimize user flows and journeys - Improve feature adoption and retention - Enhance overall user experience

As a user researcher, you should try to stay up to date with all available dashboards that are relevant to your product area. It helps to know what your organization is tracking, and it gives you direction towards where to conduct qualitative studies to understand a more detailed picture. It all depends on your organization and their infrastructure to collect user data. Check in with PMs and data analysts on your team to understand what data is being gathered and how you can learn from it.

User interviews are essential for understanding the motivations behind user behavior. You can uncover valuable insights that complement quantitative data by actively listening and asking open-ended questions. Avoid leading questions and focus on creating a safe space for users to share their thoughts and experiences.

In such a combo, analytics would have to come first. For example, leveraging a technology like process mining would show you the "what" of user behavior. From there on, a qualitative UX research approach like targeted user interviews would delve into the "why" of user behavior. Understanding the triggers, motivations and limitations of those behaviors is essential for the formation of impactful and actionable insights.

Most organizations have some sort of market research function, even if it involves hiring external consultants. Start by working with the existing survey data that your company has, and use that to inform your qualitative work.

Surveys and polls are valuable tools for collecting user feedback at scale. They're beneficial for validating insights from analytics data. Design clear and concise questions to ensure actionable results. Combine survey data with analytics to identify trends and better understand your users.

Usability testing is an incredibly powerful tool for gathering highly detailed behavioral data. Whereas user analytics track a handful of key metrics across a very large section of users, usability testing provides a view into the very detailed interactions of a handful of users.