UX analysis is methodically different from brand to brand, as each has its own set of KPIs and priorities.
User flow comes into play where UX analysis is concerned, as it is a fundamental part of UX, fulfilling a pivotal role in maintaining the sales funnel and, for this reason, conversions.
Also known as visitor flow or customer journey, the user flow denotes the path that a typical user on a website takes to complete a task, including all the steps along the way.
Mapping out visitor journeys and examining all the finer points of the user flow, such as what your visitors are doing on each page they visit, will inform you on how to improve your UX. To do so, you’ll need to begin with enhancing your user flow.
UX Analysis for Improving User Flow
Here are the steps you’ll need to take to tweak user flow with a UX analysis.
1. A Visual, High-Level View of User Flow
The first step in examining user flow is to access a high-level visualization of it. Much like a birds’ eye view, such a perspective displays all the steps of the user flow in one clear illustration of the pages viewed within the customer journey.
Where visitors land, which task(s) they complete and at what stage they do it unveils what they have been attempting or seeking from your website. Alternatively, the regions in a website in which users couldn’t complete an action reveal their struggles.
Visualizing where visitors enter your site, where they head to next and ultimately how they exit helps add a layer of behavioral understanding to customer segments.
Clarity and accessibility are key in this step, so make sure you use an analytics tool that can clearly lay out an analysis of your visitors’ journeys.
2. Observe & Simplify the Number of Steps
Secondly, you’ll need to scope out the number of steps in the user flows. This is important, as it shows the complexity your visitors undergo to complete each action. It allows you to surmise if you should increase or lessen the number of steps in these users’ journeys.
Identify friction points in the customer decision journey, including looping behavior and premature exits. Contemplate whether your visitors’ need to fill out a certain form field or enter a particular landing page to lead them to conversions or other actions. If not, cut these steps out! Less is more often times.
3. A Deeper, Page-by-Page Read in Your UX Analysis
Next, you’ll have to heed the happenings, aka individual visitor behaviors on each page of their user flows. This will help paint a clear picture of how your users’ traverse your site.
Analyzing visitor paths through your site can immediately flag pages with issues — be that an error message or a UX obstacle. For example, what is causing visitors to exit after adding to cart?
Once you’ve found these problems or points of friction, you can begin to conceive some optimization endeavors.
Besides conversions, you should decide on the metric(s) you seek to make the most strides on in your user flows. Perhaps you want to see a larger click recurrence or a smaller hesitation time. When you zero in a few KPIs or metrics, you’ll be able to tackle user flow optimization in a more precise and conscientious way. This will allow your team to implement a more granular approach to improving each step in the digital visitor journey.
4. Implement A/B Tests
Then, consider how you can improve the user flow by implementing A/B tests. A/B testing is a strategy in which two versions of a website or app are tested against each other on their performance. This will help answer questions about why the setup or features in one page are more effective than another, allowing you to make informed optimization decisions
Finally, after you’ve delved into your UX analysis, you can make changes to your UX accordingly, which will directly influence user flows. Perhaps they’ll improve user flows, making them easier for users to achieve their tasks without issues. There is also the possibility that these changes will have little effect on these flows.
What’s certain is that a granular, behavioral analysis provides a much more lucid picture of how your visitors interact with your content. Although traditional analytics are certainly part of the makeup of this picture, they do not present a comprehensive user flow.
Accessing the user flow requires sifting from an overview to granular data, from viewing journeys to in-page steps, and zooming in on the obstacles.
Culling this data will allow you to make fact-based decisions, instead of those based on intuition.
More Tips on User Flow & UX Analysis
The number of steps a user must take to complete a task often corresponds with their satisfaction over the quality of the digital experience. A good experience is unlikely to have points of friction in which visitors find themselves burdened in the steps towards completing an action.
However, there are instances in which shorter journeys are not the UX target; there will be instances where you want to drive longer sessions and deeper engagement.
An in-depth level of data can help you answer whether a short site duration is telling of a good or bad UX. You have to inquire if a short site navigation is due to visitors having completed their goals or if they struggle with the experience.
An exhaustive UX analysis will shine light on these questions. And since seamlessness is a cornerstone of a good UX, an exhaustive analysis of customer journeys goes hand in hand with digital customer satisfaction.