UX Metrics and ROI

A UX metric is a piece of numerical data that tells us about some aspect of the user experience of a product or service. These metrics can be invaluable, helping teams to assess the quality of their designs and track improvements over time. In some cases, they can be used to demonstrate how UX work can impact business goals.

This report includes 44 real-life case studies highlighting how teams have used UX metrics in their work. Many are success stories, demonstrating how well-founded and researched design decisions have a huge impact on the user experience, resulting in increased business value . Some are not success stories — the impact on the design was neutral or even negative. This is the reality of design work: we can’t always predict the impact on our users. This fact underscores the continued need for iterative design work based on solid research.

The 297-page report also includes advice for applying these concepts to your own work, as well as detailed quantitative analysis of the 99 total case studies we’ve collected for all editions of this report over 14 years.

Topics

• 44 detailed case studies of real-life design projects, featuring 30 new case studies collected for the 5th edition. These case studies come from companies of all sizes and industries, including:
  • American Kennel Club
  • Arizona State University
  • Atlassian
  • HelloFresh
  • Luxottica (Ray-Ban and Oakley)
  • Shopify
  • Starbucks
• Clear definitions of popular UX metrics and quantitative methodologies
• Step-by-step guides for applying these concepts
  • How to get started with UX benchmarking
  • How to calculate the return-on-investment for design changes
  • How to estimate the magnitude of gains from design changes
• The average amount of impact that design projects have on metrics
  • Realistic expectations for your own design work
  • Breakdown of average gains for each category of UX metric
• How the impact of UX has changed over time
  • Comparison of current average amount of impact against older data from 2006-2008
  • Breakdown of how average gains for each category of UX metric have changed
  • Explanations for these differences
  • Predictions for future changes
• Each case study includes:
  • Metrics collected
  • Methodology used
  • Description of the product or service
  • Description of the design problem(s) that the team attempted to address
  • Description of the solution(s) implemented
  • Results of the design change

What’s new in the 5th Edition?

• New name: The 5^th edition is a radical transformation of this report. The report’s title for the first four editions was Return on Investment (ROI) for Usability, and focused heavily on determining a budget for UX activities, and justifying the need for UX work. This new edition focuses more on using quantitative data to assess UX changes and estimate their impact.
• 30 new case studies of real-life UX projects and metrics: The new case studies come from a huge variety of industries and products. In addition to screenshots and metrics, many of the case studies also include design artifacts like ideation sketches. The case studies come from around the world, including:
  • North America
  • Europe
  • Oceania
  • South America
  • The Middle East
  • Asia
• 9 in-depth interviews with some of the design teams: Their quotes, stories, and tips are included throughout the report.
• Explanations and instructions for applying these approaches: In this edition, we’ve added three chapters with definitions of important concepts, as well as advice about how to apply these concepts on your own.