Mobile User Experience: Why Analyzing It Is Crucial

The path to finding valuable information about your user(s) come from measuring and analyzing the user experience (UX).

Traditionally, such as through a desktop environment, you would operate analytical tools that would spit out hard data. You could see, for example with a website, how people behaved by their browsing habits and by setting goals to provide helpful data on conversions.

This, however, only gives you a limited scope as to seeing the true nature of your user.

In recent years we have seen the rise of analytical tools which place a high emphasis on visuals.

Providers like Inspectlet (which records screen sessions and performs eye-tracking) or Crazy Egg which also shows detailed visualizations on how people interact by displaying their actions via heatmaps.

When these technologies are applied to the mobile platform new opportunities to build engagement, conversions, and monetization can take place. It allows you (and your team) to truly understand how users interact on screen sizes, operating systems, and environments which aren’t the “norm” (in the sense of desktop analytics).

Let’s take a look at three which would provide the greatest return on investment when developing the mobile user experience:

• Heatmaps – (As noted before) these are reports which show user interact with the platform. If you were to look at one it may seem confusing but it’s generally straight forward. Areas which has more activity will appear “hotter” (more yellow/red/purple) compared to “cold” areas (show usually as blue). Using this tool you can identify which elements of a page draw the most attention to which you can then use that data to make logical changes to the layout.

• User Recording – For those that have time and patience to analyze data there is no better way to truly understand your audience than with user recordings. Why? Because it records their full actions from the time they hit the site/app to the time they’re on their way. It allows you to peer into their experience, where they may have become “stuck”, or what drew their attention. This type of testing helps smooth out the kinks in your application.

• Real–time Reporting – Real-time reporting analytical tools are becoming quite popular because it gives you the ability to watch how users interact with your app as they’re using it. By paying keen attention to the data as it comes through in real-time you can take notes about what conflicts or triumphs your app has overcome in user experience.

A Note from adQuadrant

Analytics will be one of the (if not most) valuable assets and activities for your mobile campaigns. Without analytics and reporting you will not have the correct data to optimize. When you’re stumped as how to implement this crucial activity take action and get in touch with us. Analytics and testing is at the core of our business; we can help you understand, we can help you implement strategies, and we can help you increase your ROI through smart, logical decisions.