Anna Goeva

The role of website analytics in

identifying user experience (UX)
improvements
Metropolia University of Applied Sciences
Bachelor of Business Administration

International Business and Logistics

Bachelor’s Thesis
22 April 2019
 Abstract

Author Anna Goeva

Title Web Analytics role in the website UX improvement process

Number of Pages 40 pages + 1 appendices

Date 22 April 2019

Degree Bachelor of Business Administration

Degree Programme International Business and Logistics

Instructor/Tutor John Greene, Principle Lecturer

This thesis is based on the research on how web analytics data can be helpful for website
User Experience (UX) optimization. The aim of the research was to showcase how it can
show gaps in the current UX state of a business’s website and what kind of conclusions
can be done based on web analytics data.

There were several books and journal articles used in order to understand the connection
between Digital Measurement, Design Thinking, User Experience and Web Design.

The research has been carried out in a qualitative manner and consisted of two parts:
interviews and a case study. The aim of the interviews was to gain an understanding of
how web analytics is used in different companies for UX improvement. The aim of the case
study was to showcase how web analytics data can show gaps in a website’s UX.

Based on the research results, it is clear that web analytics data is a meaningful source of
information about website UX when working on a company’s website design. Web
analytics data helps to point to the existing problems on the website which can lead to the
worse User Experience as well as it allows to see how visitors interact with the website
over time.

One of the main challenges of using web analytics data for UX improvement is that while
the data might show the gaps in the website UX, a direct answer on how much users are
satisfied with the website cannot be gotten by using analytics data only. Another challenge
is the fast pace of website technologies development, which makes it hard for the web
analytics industry to keep up with the progress in order to provide a wide range of metrics
which can be tracked.

Keywords user experience, customer experience, design thinking, web

analytics, digital measurement
Contents

Glossary

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Background 1

2 Literature review 2

2.1 Introduction 2
2.2 Customer Experience 2
2.2.1 Customer journey map 3
2.3 Design Thinking 5
2.3.1 Design Thinking Principles 6
2.3.2 Design Thinking process 7
2.4 User Experience Design 9
2.4.1 Definition of User Experience Design 9
2.4.2 UX Process Lifecycle 9
2.4.3 User Experience Components 12
2.5 Web Design 16
2.5.1 Components of web design 16
2.5.2 UX in Web Design 18
2.6 Digital Measurement 19
2.6.1 Digital Measurement Tools 20
2.7 Metrics choice and measurement 21
2.7.1 The HEART framework 21
2.7.2 Goals – Signals - Metrics framework 22
2.7.3 Goals 22
2.7.4 Signal 22
2.7.5 Metrics 23

3 Research Methodology 23

3.1 Research Plan 24

3.1.1 Interview 24
3.1.2 Case study 25
3.2 Limitations of the study 26
4 Research Results 27

4.1 Case study 27

4.1.1 Company X website role in the business 27
4.2 Why to perform a case study 27
4.3 Analysis process 27
4.4 Website Engagement 28
4.5 Website adoption 30
4.6 Website Retention 31

5 Task Success 32

5.1 Conclusion 33
5.2 Interviews 33
5.3 Interview with a Chief Business Development Officer 33
5.3.1 General knowledge about the company 33
5.4 Perception of UX and its challenges 34
5.4.1 Website UX improvement with web analytics data 34
5.4.2 Conclusion 35
5.5 Interview with the UX Designer / Developer 35
5.5.1 General knowledge about the company 35
5.6 Perception of UX and its challenges 36
5.6.1 Website UX improvement with web analytics data 37
5.6.2 Conclusion 37

6 Discussion and Conclusion 38

References 39

General knowledge about the company 1

Perception of UX and its challenges 1
Website UX improvement with web analytics data 1

Appendices
Appendix 1. Interview Questions

List of Figures

Figure 1. Customer Journey stages 3

Figure 2. Spaces of Design Thinking by Tim Brown (2008) 8
Figure 3. Evaluation in the UX Process lifecycle according to Hartson and Pyla
(2012) 10
Figure 4. Five components of the User Experience. 12
Figure 5. A Landscape of User Experience Research Methods (Rohrer, 2014) 14
Figure 6. Components of Web Design 17
Figure 7. The HEART framework 21
Figure 8. Three types or research 24
Figure 9. Metrics which were analyzed in the study 28
Figure 10. Website sessions 28
Figure 11. Session duration 29
Figure 12. Pages viewed per session by new visitors and returning visitors. 30
Figure 13. Website Retention rate 31
Figure 14. Conversions per month vs conversion rate 32
Glossary

Touchpoint The moment of interaction between a brand and a potential customer

Lead A potential customer

 1

1 Introduction

1.1 Background

Nowadays, it is hard to imagine modern life without websites. When someone gets
interested in a brand, one of the most common decisions to learn more about it is to find
the website of the company. According to Hosting Facts, there are 342 million registered
domain names registered around the world as well as there are 1.94 billion websites
published in the world. It means that for businesses of today’s world, having a website is
the new normal while for the people it is the new normal to check information from the
websites.

Having a website, however, it not enough and it some cases it might only hurt a business.
Nowadays, website is a “face” of the business and how visitors feel about it will depend
on how they feel about the business. If a visitor had a bad experience, there is 88 percent
chance (EConsultancy, 2012) that he or she will never return to the website. For this
reason, website User Experience (UX) plays an important role in the website design
process.

The aim of this research is to gain an understanding of how web analytics data is used
by the web designers for UX improvements as well as how such data can show the gaps
in the website UX.

Throughout the research, the author will answer the following questions:

1) What is the view of designers on analytics data?

• How important the website UX is?

2) How can analytics data be used in UX improvement?

• How does analytics data can help to improve the website UX?
• How the gaps in UX can be seen in the analytics data?
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2 Literature review

2.1 Introduction

In order to carry out a research, it is important first to analyze the theoretical concepts
which are relatable to the topic of User Experience.

The first part of the literature takes a reader through the concept of Customer Experience
and the frameworks for mapping it out. Then, the Design Thinking concept is explained
as Design Thinking goal is to understand the feelings and expectations of customer and
is related to the Customer Experience and UX.

The second part of the literature review is dedicated to the in-depth look into the UX
itself, its definition and what a good UX is like.

As this thesis is focused on the website UX, the final part of the thesis is dedicated to the
Web Design and Digital Measurement tools and frameworks. The reader will learn about
the components of a good Web Design and how Digital Measurement on the websites
is performed.

2.2 Customer Experience

Understanding customer experience is critically important for businesses of today.

Nowadays, as the technologies keep developing at a fast pace, customers get to interact
with a company in more and more ways through different channels, making customer
experience more social. Businesses need to plan thoroughly how companies represent
themselves at every point it interacts with the potential customer.

It is challenging to define Customer Experience in one way. Abbott (1955) and Alderson
(1957) have were claiming that something what people really desire are not products but
satisfying experiences.(Abbott 1955, p. 40) One of the modern ways to look at the
Customer Experience was introduced by Zarantonello (2015), who proposes that every
service exchange in any form can be called as Customer Experience.
 3

Knowing what Customer Experience of a brand looks like gives a valuable insight on
what are the main areas of focus in the User Experience improvement process. For this
reason, designers often draw a customer journey map, which helps to understand the
steps of how a customer becomes aware of the brand and interacts with it later on.

2.2.1 Customer journey map

Harvard Business Review defines customer journey as the process of people moving
from the point of having a need in something to purchasing a service/product and being
loyal to the brand after that. (HBR, 2010)

Through the fast development of multi-channel digital services and information sources,
these days anyone can get practically any information about anything on the internet,
including information about products and services he or she is interested in. That led to
turning the customer journey from a linear and straightforward process into a complicated
one. For a business to understand it, the customer journey mapping is used. Customer
journey maps show through which stages of a buying process customers go and what
are the touchpoints with the brand at each these of the stages.

Customer journey map consists of three main stages which are pre-purchase, purchase
and post-purchase stages. (Tsiotsou & Wirtz, 2015)

Prepurchase stage Purchase stage Postpurchase stage

Figure 1. Customer Journey stages

2.2.1.1 Pre-purchase stage

The pre-purchase stage includes all interactions with the company before the purchase
itself happens. From the customer side, at the pre-purchase stage, a potential customer
goes through such stages as need recognition, research, and consideration. At this
 4

stage, a potential customer realizes the need for a product or service, does research on
how his need can be satisfied and learns about what can be offered in the market and
what are alternatives.

2.2.1.2 Purchase stage

During the purchase stage the direct interactions with the companies are happening. A
potential customer learns about product and what the offer could be like and then makes
a decision whether to proceed with a purchase or not. (Tsiotsou & Wirtz, 2015).

2.2.1.3 Post-purchase stage

Post-purchase stage includes interactions with the brand after the purchase has been
made. From the customer side, he goes though the stages of using the product, brand
loyalty development and optionally engaging with customer service. At this point,
product/service quality becomes the most important as the interaction with the brand
itself is not usually happening at this stage unless there’s a need in using customer
support services. (Tsiotsou & Wirtz, 2015).

2.2.1.4 Touchpoints within the customer journey

During the customer journey process, a potential customer engages with the company
on several levels and different stages. Lemon and Verhoef (2015) defines four main
types of touchpoints: brand-owned, social, partner-owned and customer-owned.

Brand-owned touchpoints are the ones that brands have control over. These can be
advertisements, a website, and marketing campaigns. (Lemon and Verhoef 2015, p.76)

Partner-owned touchpoints are sub-controlled by third-parties. Brands still have sub-

control over these touchpoints by request, but central control over them goes to
marketing agencies and other service providers. (Lemon and Verhoef 2015, p.77)

Customer-owned points are the ones which brands have no control over as customers
go through them themselves by thinking about the suitability of brand offering or choosing
the payment or delivery method. These touchpoints are quite common at the beginning
 5

of the customer journey at the pre-purchase stage when the need is being defined, and
possible solutions are being researched. (Lemon and Verhoef 2015, p.78)

Social/external touchpoints aren't directly owned by brand, but brands' customer

experience for other customers plays a critical role here. Social touchpoints include
communicating with other brand customers, getting feedback from trusted peers and
reading reviews on product/service. (Lemon and Verhoef 2015, p.78)

However, knowing touchpoints alone is not enough in order to provide a good User
Experience. It is important to “connect” with the customers and to understand their
expectations first. One of the ways to do that is to apply Design Thinking methods.

2.3 Design Thinking

Design Thinking is a compelling way of thinking, that can help to find a solution to many
challenges. It is used a lot by companies and web designers as a way to understand the
customers and their expectations, which later on would help to improve the UX.

One of the first adopters of Design Thinking approach was an American psychologist
Herbert Simon, who described the concept of Design Thinking in his article "The
Sciences of the Artificial" (1969). He claims that Design Thinking can help to solve
complex problems extraordinarily.

Another view on design thinking was introduced by Tom Brown, the founder of IDEO and
the author of the book “Design Thinking”, known by the public as “the father for Design
Thinking”. He defined Design Thinking as a discipline that uses the designer's sensibility
and methods to match people's needs with what is technologically feasible and what a
viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity.
(Brown, 2008) In this section, the author will describe Design Thinking from his
perspective.
 6

2.3.1 Design Thinking Principles

In the book "Design Thinking for Strategic Innovation" Mootee described 10 main
principles of Design Thinking, which define the idea of Design Thinking and how it differs
from another traditional way of thinking. (Mootee, 2013)

Design Thinking is Human Centric. One of the main ideas behind User Thinking is that
it is always concentrated on the users' needs. It can be achieved by thorough studying
users, their behavior and needs. (Mootee, 2013)

Design Thinking is comfortable with change. It is disruptive and provocative by

default as it approaches challenges differently and promotes outside-of-box thinking.
(Mootee, 2013)

Design Thinking is Human Centric. One of the main ideas behind User Thinking is that
it is always concentrated on the users' needs. It can be achieved by thorough studying
users, their behavior and needs. (Mootee, 2013)

Design Thinking integrates foresight. Foresight allows to understand mystery of the

future and try working with unknown. (Mootee, 2013)

Design Thinking is a dynamic constructive process. It shouldn't and cannot be

stopped. It's an ongoing process of definition, redefinition and learning from the new
experience. (Mootee, 2013)

Design Thinking promotes empathy. It put users to the center of the entire process
and encourages them to communicate with users for a better understanding of their
needs. (Mootee, 2013)

Design Thinking reduces risks. It allows taking into consideration all the factors that
can affect the success of the product. (Mootee, 2013)

Design Thinking can create meaning. It can't tolerate tools which limit the possibility
to communicate. Maps, models, and sketches, however, help to build the purpose, which
can be achieved through conversations and multiple iterations. (Mootee, 2013)
 7

Design Thinking can bring enterprise creativity to the next level. It creates an
environment where trying out new things and embracing questioning is encouraged.
(Mootee, 2013)

Design Thinking is the New "Competitive logic of business strategy." It's the most
suitable for Porter's theory of competitive strategy. (Mootee, 2013)

2.3.2 Design Thinking process

Tim Brown suggests looking at the Design Thinking process more like at the system of
spaces rather than a defined list of stages. The interactions within these spaces can
seem quite confusing to those encountering it for the very first time but after it while it
starts to make sense. These spaces can be separated into Inspiration, Ideation, and
Implementation. (Brown, 2008)
 8

Figure 2. Spaces of Design Thinking by Tim Brown (2008)

2.3.2.1 Inspiration

In the Inspiration phase, much attention is paid to collaborations. Different teams with
different background and experiences work together on finding appropriate constraints
for the project. At this phase, it is essential to think more broadly than just about your
primary market. (Brown, 2008)

2.3.2.2 Ideation

The Ideation phase is the time when brainstorming takes place. Based on the findings
from the inspiration phase, the design team creates as many sketches and usage
scenarios as possible, keeping in mind users, their behavior and needs. Then, out of
those many sketches, the most working ones are chosen, which now enter the
 9

prototyping/testing process. This process includes testing within the team and potential
users of a product/service, and only after that the project moves to the implementation
phase. (Brown, 2008)

2.3.2.3 Implementation

The implementation phase revolves around creating a marketing strategy and applying
it, to spread the news about new product/service. (Brown, 2008)

2.4 User Experience Design

2.4.1 Definition of User Experience Design

With the development of digital services and increasing internet connection covering the
world, it has never been this easy to find needed information about a product. Online
users expect better and better digital experience as using the internet became a part of
the daily routine for millions of people. Knowing why visitors check a particular website
or service can significantly improve visitors' experience with the service. That can be
done by using UX design techniques in website design. (Paunovic, 2017)

Shedroff (2006) defines user experience as the overall experience, in general, or

specifics, a user, customer, or audience member has with a product, service, or event.
From the user side, user experience doesn't form immediately. As a person first
encounters some product, he or she informs the first impression of it. However, as a
product becomes more familiar over the usage time, the actual and objective opinion
about product forms.

2.4.2 UX Process Lifecycle

According to Hartson and Pyla (2012), UX Process lifecycle consists of four main
activities, which are applicable for any design, no matter whether it's a hardware design
or web-design. These activities are Analyse, Design, Implement and Evaluate or
analysis, design, implementation, and evaluation.
 10

A considerable part of the process lifecycle is an evaluation, which is shown in the Figure
3. Every activity within the process lifecycle is being evaluated, such as testing,
inspecting and analyzing before pushing it into production.

Figure 3. Evaluation in the UX Process lifecycle according to Hartson and Pyla (2012)

2.4.2.1 Analyze

The analyze stage is all about understanding users and their needs. Two general
activities at this stage include contextual inquiry and contextual analysis.

During the contextual inquiry process, customers undergo through the detailed study, to
determine their behavior, triggers and behavior patterns. Contextual inquiry is usually
made through user interviews and user observations. (Hartson and Pyla, 2012)

Contextual analysis is the process of analyzing information obtained through the

contextual inquiry process to find out the work context for a product. (Hartson and Pyla,
2012)
 11

2.4.2.2 Design

After the data from the contextual analysis is processed, the design stage starts. Some
of the activities at this stage include design ideation and sketching and design as well as
design production.

During the design ideation and sketching, based on the interviews and user
observations, the mental models and design storyboards are being presented, which
translate user behavior into a list of places, where the current design is lacking and how
it can be improved for a better experience with the product. (Hartson and Pyla, 2012)

Design production applies all above mentioned models and boards into real prototypes
and physical mockups of a design of a product. (Hartson and Pyla, 2012)

2.4.2.3 Prototype

At the prototyping stage, the main focus is set on creating different design alternatives.

While designers work on different design ideas, they produce a lot of different prototypes,
which can be created for different purposes and with a different level fidelity. Some of
the examples of such prototypes can be paper models (low-fidelity) or visual, high-
precision prototypes (high-fidelity). (Hartson and Pyla, 2012)

2.4.2.4 Evaluate

Evaluation stage is concentrated on verifying and refining the interaction design,

developed from prototypes. Before pushing the design into production, the product
designers need to be checked once again to make sure that all the requirements are
included in the design and all user needs are met. In order to refine the design, rapid
evaluation and fully rigorous methods can be applied. (Hartson and Pyla, 2012)

Rapid evaluation methods are mostly to use for finding qualitative data in situations,
when the UX problems, which are cost-effective to fix, can be found. This kind of
information can be obtained through designs walkthroughs. Rapid evaluation methods
are usually less formal and with fewer implementation rules. (Hartson and Pyla, 2012)
 12

Fully rigorous methods allow checking whether the UX targets have been achieved and
whether UX design goes in line with the business objectives. It's usually done by the
project team, working on that UX design project. (Hartson and Pyla, 2012)

2.4.3 User Experience Components

A good user experience consists of several components, which are all taken into
consideration when working on the UX design. The components are Brand, Friction
and Flow, Predictability, Consistency, and Viability. On the picture below you can see,
that these components can be ordered from the least important - Brand to the most
important one – Viability. (Davis, 2017)

Figure 4. Five components of the User Experience.

2.4.3.1 Viability

Every product/service with a good UX should have enough viability for comfortable use
by users. For example, if a website has a "contact us" form but doesn't have mandatory
fields such as request explanation, users might put this information into other fields. This
means that the UX wasn't thought through when designing the website and it lacks
viability. (Davis, 2017)
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2.4.3.2 Consistency

Consistency is another critical component of good UX. That means that the product or
service shouldn't have any "surprises" for users and done the same way throughout. In
website UX, it means that the same button shouldn't have several different users on
different pages of the website or the layout of web pages should be the same throughout
the whole website. (Davis, 2017)

2.4.3.3 Predictability

Predictability components determine how self-explanatory design is from the UX point of

view. For example, the website might have a complicated sign-up system, which might
be hard to understand for those doing it for the very first time. It is essential to make all
processes clear and easy to understand. (Davis, 2017)

2.4.3.4 Friction and Flow

Good UX also needs to be structured so that it would facilitate the flow or create friction.
Flow makes processes go smoother and simpler. For example, in website development,
an example of flow could be showing local information on the website according to the
region. As for friction, the example could be making a call for more details instead of
filling up a contact form. (Davis, 2017)

2.4.3.5 Brand

Proper branding is the most crucial component of good UX. Users will have better UX
when brands act more "alive" than just a company name. Businesses should
continuously work on improving brand awareness and improving loyalty to the brand. In
website development it could mean, for example, making personal suggestions for each
user based on his profile and past actions. (Davis, 2017)

2.4.3.6 User Experience Research Methods

There are many User Experience Research methods available, which are done in
different ways and bring different results. It is essential to choose the right techniques for
the research which will help to achieve the research goal.
 14

It is helpful to view these methods in a three-dimensional framework: Altitudinal vs.

Behavioural, Qualitative vs. Quotative and Context of Use. (Rohrer, 2014)

Figure 5. A Landscape of User Experience Research Methods (Rohrer, 2014)

2.4.3.7 Attitudinal vs. Behavioural

Attitudinal methods are concentrated on learning about people's thinking process and
reasoning. This information is essential for designers as the design can be adapted to
the process of users' thinking.

For example, these methods include card sorting, which helps to understand better
users' mental model, surveys, which help to measure and categorize attitudes and focus
groups, which help to understand user's opinions about a brand or product concept.

Behavioral methods, however, are focused on learning about the way users interact with
the product or, in this case, the website. Some of the examples for such methods is A/B
testing, which helps to understand, how small changes in the design of product affect
 15

users' behavior and eye tracking which helps to understand the way users visually
interact with the interface. (Rohrer, 2014)

2.4.3.8 The Qualitative vs. Quantitative

The difference between qualitative and quantitative methods is more noticeable here.
Qualitative methods are built to collect information about behaviors and attitudes by
observing their behavior directly. The example of such a process could be an open-
ended survey question. Quantitative methods, in the meantime, are indirect and fetch
the data, which will be analyzed later on through measurement or calculations. This can
be, for example, data gotten through the analytics tool, which is represented by different
numbers, which will be further studied by the analytics professionals. (Rohrer, 2014)

2.4.3.9 The Context of Product Use

This dimension depends on whether the service or product design is being researched.
It can be separated into natural or near-natural use, scripted use, not using the product,
hybrid of uses. (Rohrer, 2014)

2.4.3.10 Natural use

When it comes to the natural use of the product studies, it allows seeing how the product
would be used in real life. This kind of research is usually as little scripted as possible.
(Rohrer, 2014)

2.4.3.11 Scripted use

Scripted use is used in the research when there's a need to research specific parts of
the usage process. In this case, the use cases are scripted in advance with the degree
of varying depending on each situation, and the participants of the study should follow
these cases. (Rohrer, 2014)

2.4.3.12 Hybrid use

This kind of studying combines several uses in one study. For example, participants of
the study could be involved in the redesign process in order to understand how the needs
 16

of the users can be met better. Another example could be the application of concept-
testing methods, where the concept of a product or service that could improve the UX
will be proposed to the focus group with the goal to understand whether it will attract any
interest. (Rohrer, 2014)

As websites are an important part of the overall customer experience, keeping UX in

mind is critical when working on the website design in order to provide visitors with the
most relevant information in the least complicated way. For this reason, these two
processes should go hand in hand when developing the website.

2.5 Web Design

With the Internet connection coverage growing around the world and becoming one of
the main distribution channels nowadays, the number of websites is growing at a fast
pace too. According to Domain Name Stat (Domainnamestat.com, 2019), there are more
than 318 million domains registered on the Internet. Most of these domains represent a
webpage, which has its purpose, structure, and design. In such a fast-growing industry,
good web design is becoming a crucial factor, which determines how many visitors will
stay on the website and how many later on will turn into customers.

Jennifer Kyrnin defines Web Design as:

"The planning and creation of websites. This includes many separate skills that all
fall under the umbrella of web design. Some examples of these skills are
information architecture, user interface, site structure, navigation, layout, colors,
fonts, and overall imagery." (Kyrnin, 2018)

Just like in Product Design, User Experience plays a critical part in the Web Design. No
design will help to turn website visitors into customers if UX of the website if it is entirely
different from the visitor's expectations. There are several principles of UX in Web Design
that make websites easy to understand and navigate.

2.5.1 Components of web design

Web Design doesn't only mean how a website looks like. It covers the overall look & feel
of the website. Web Design can be separated into three components: Aesthetic Design,
Information Design, and Interface Design. (Ta'eed, 2008)
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Figure 6. Components of Web Design

2.5.1.1 Aesthetic Design

Aesthetic Design covers that part of web design, that ensures that the website is
appropriately designed. Different websites are built for different purposes and transfer
different messages. It is essential that web designers don't go for every web design trend
and apply them on their website right away but rather think more how it reflects on
brand's message and whether it improves its delivery to the website visitors. (Ta'eed,
2008)

2.5.1.2 Information Design

Information Design is all about the right structure of the text on a website. When visitors
come to a website, the main reason why they come is to find the information they need.
Information Design techniques include the use of graphical content, headings and sub-
headings for the possibility of skimming through the text. (Ta'eed, 2008)
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2.5.1.3 Interface Design

Interface Design covers the part of Web Design that includes arrangement of elements
of the website and how a user interacts with them. A good website interface is the one,
which is initiative, practical and easy to navigate. It is important for web designers to
remember that every element on the website should have its reason to be there. (Ta'eed,
2008)

2.5.2 UX in Web Design

Just like in Product Design, User Experience plays a critical part in the Web Design. No
design will help to turn website visitors into customers if UX of the website if it is entirely
different from the visitor's expectations. There are several principles of UX in Web Design
that make websites easy to understand and navigate. (Ta'eed, 2008)

2.5.2.1 Landing Page

Most of the times, the first page which users see on a website is the main page. The right
organization of this page is critical to keep visitors on the website as the first impression
will be built based on the main page content. It is advised that the main page should be
able to capture the attention of visitors. It can be achieved by implementing good,
minimalistic design with the relevant content blocks, such as videos or animations. (UX
Planet, 2018)

2.5.2.2 Rethink the Content

Quite often, web designers try to squeeze as much content on a page as possible. This
is not the right strategy. Having a lot of heavy text can negatively affect the UX as most
of the time visitors skim through the text rather than read it thoroughly. In this case,
quality goes over quantity. Texts should be created with precise sentences, separated
with appropriate headers, and the use of graphical content makes it easier to
comprehend the main idea. (UX Planet, 2018)
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2.5.2.3 Live Chat

Nowadays, users don't want to wait. Same applies to customer service: people want to
know an answer to their questions here and now. Having a possibility to contact a
customer service representative is, practically speaking, essential for a website, which
strives for the excellent User Experience. It can be used for reaching out to the company
by potential customers, price inquiries, job opportunities or even customer feedback. (UX
Planet, 2018)

2.5.2.4 Micro Animations

Micro-animations are usually small animations around the website, which make
interaction with web pages smoother and eye-pleasing and, hence, help to improve UX
on the website. (UX Planet, 2018)

2.5.2.5 Sweet Spot Between Uniformity and Variation

Choosing the right, UX-friendly layout for the website is one of the big pains for web
designers. If a website has more than 1 page, it is important to define several layouts,
which will be distributed throughout the website. Too many different layouts, however,
can affect website and UX on the pages negatively. (Pines, 2018)

After the website is built and its design is finished, another big question which arises is
how the success of the website and UX efficiency can be measured. Nowadays, the
industry of digital measurement is developing at a fast pace, which can provide a lot
relevant website performance data.

2.6 Digital Measurement

Why measure? This is a common question asked in the beginning of the road to the
brand’s digital development. Ultimately, digital measuring is an essential process that
allows noticing the gaps which prevent businesses from reaching their goals. The Web
Analytics Association (WAA) defines it as:
 20

“The process of measurement, analyzing and usage of the digital data for better
understanding and improving web usage.”

As website development industry doesn’t stop growing, marketing strategies and

websites also require constant optimization. First impression matters so when website
visitors notice that the site is poorly done technically or content-wise, the chance of
potential customers turning into actual customers decreases significantly. This is when
digital measurement comes into play. By analyzing the behavior of customers on the
website, it becomes possible to see what exact reasons why visitors might be not
proceeding to the purchase stage. It could be page loading speed, too long text or
website design fault. All of those is the most important and useful data, which can be
used for the UX improvement.

2.6.1 Digital Measurement Tools

All digital measurement tools can be separated into two main types: offsite tools and
onsite tools

Offsite tools measure a company’s impact on the internet environment outside of the
website. For example, they can estimate the number of brand’s mentions in socials or
measure the size of potential audiences.

Onsite tools work the other way around by concentrating on the website visitors’ behavior
within the business’s website. The data which they measure shows how visitors navigate
through the site, how much time they spent on it, what pages they visit the most and a
lot of other data which helps to understand how well a website performs. Google
Analytics is the most common onsite tool for measuring website traffic, so the author will
concentrate on it in this thesis.

2.6.1.1 Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free statistics software, created by Google. One of the main
benefits of Google Analytics is it allows to track the customer journey from the moment
a visitor enters the website to the product/service purchase moment. The main three
areas of Google Analytics tracking are Acquisition (where did the visitor come from),
Behaviour (how the visitor interacts with the website) and Conversion (the goal reaching
 21

moment). Knowing the data from these three areas gives endless opportunities for the
UX improvement. (MonsterInsights, 2019)

2.7 Metrics choice and measurement

While it is important to use web analytics data for UX, it is also critically important to
choose the right metrics out of a wide assortment. The ex-google designer Kerry Rodden
suggested two frameworks, which would help to choose the right metrics to track.

2.7.1 The HEART framework

There are many different metrics available nowadays for tracking. But what they actually
measure? The HEART framework, created by Google, helps to understand what kind of
user behavior different metrics measure. The main idea behind the HEART framework
is the fact that most of the UX metrics which are usually being tracked fall into 5 big
categories: happiness, engagement, adoption, retention and task success. (Rodden,
Hutchinson and Fu, 2010)

Category Category description

The measurement of happiness is usually done through surveys, which can tell about
Happiness user satisfaction with a product/service and the ease of product/service use. (Rodden,
Hutchinson and Fu, 2010)
Engagement category shows how much the users are involved into a product/service.
Metrics which fall under this category usually show frequency, intensity, or depth of
Engagement interaction with a product/service. In the case of website analytics, such metrics can be
the visit frequency, visit duration or the number of pages viewed per visit. (Rodden,
Hutchinson and Fu, 2010)
Adoption metrics show how many new users has the product/service acquired over the
Adoption period of time. For websites, one of such metrics can be the number of new visitors
over the period of time. (Rodden, Hutchinson and Fu, 2010)
Retention-related metrics show how much users are willing to visit the product/service
Retention again. In the web analytics, one of such metrics can be a user retention rate over a
period of time. (Rodden, Hutchinson and Fu, 2010)
Task success metrics measure how much it takes a user to finish a certain task. Web
Task analytics metrics of this kind can be the conversion rate over a period of time, or how
Success long it took to reach a certain page or to fill a sign-up form. (Rodden, Hutchinson and
Fu, 2010)
Figure 7. The HEART framework
 22

It’s not necessary and even not advised to track metrics from all five categories. Rodden
suggests that the choice of the metrics should be based on the goal of the project. For
example, a small startup might be concentrated on brand awareness and user
acquisition, so they would want to track the number of new website visitors and the
sources they come from. For the bigger companies, however, it might be relevant to track
new visitors but rather how deeply the visitors go into the website and how well they
visitors convert in potential customers. (Rodden, Hutchinson and Fu, 2010)

2.7.2 Goals – Signals - Metrics framework

After metrics categories are defined, it is time to move on to the actual choice of metrics.
In order to define them, it is important to look at the UX improvement project through
through levels: goals, signals, and metrics. (Rodden, Hutchinson and Fu, 2010)

2.7.3 Goals

At this point, it is important to figure out what are the final goals which need to be
achieved. Should it be the improved content on the website? Or maybe layout change?
It is important to define smaller goals as it would bring the most accurate results and,
hence, would help to choose the metrics are actually needed for the project. (Rodden,
Hutchinson and Fu, 2010)

2.7.4 Signal

After the goals are chosen, it is time to move to the next stage, where certain points of
action or, so-called, signals need to be identified. Later in the UX improvement project,
these failed or succeeded signals will be used to make changes in the website on a
global scale. (Rodden, Hutchinson and Fu, 2010)

For example, if the goal of the project is to improve the conversion on the product
description page, the signal for it could be a filled demo request, which will succeed if
the form is submitted or fail if a visitor exists the page without submitting it. If that can be
seen that visitors spend a considerable amount of time on the page but avoid demo
 23

requests, then it could give a room for UX improvement of that page. (Rodden,
Hutchinson and Fu, 2010)

2.7.5 Metrics

After signals are defined, it is possible to choose the most relevant to the project UX
KPIs, which can be chosen by applying the HEART framework. (Rodden, Hutchinson
and Fu, 2010)

3 Research Methodology

One can define research as a scientific and systematic search for pertinent information
on a specific topic. In the business context, the aim of the research is to understand
and establish the truth about certain phenomena by using scientific methods (Kothari
2008). There are three main types of research: quantitative, qualitative and mixed.

Quantitative research can be described as an approach for testing objective theories by

examining the relationship among variables. These variables, in turn, can be
measured, typically on instruments, so that numbered data can be analyzed using
statistical procedures. (Creswell, 2014) Quantitative research usually revolves around a
hypothesis analyzed and the final result of the search is either its confirmation or
disconfirmation. Some of the methods of quantitative research include surveys,
observation, and experimentation.

Baxter and Jack (2008, p.544) defined qualitative research as:

“An approach to research that facilitates the exploration of a phenomenon within

its context using a variety of data sources. This ensures that the issue is not
explored through one lens, but rather a variety of lenses which allows for multiple
facets of the phenomenon to be revealed and understood.”

Qualitative research is appropriate when the primary purpose is to explore, describe or

explain. (Leavy 2017: Chapter 1). This kind of research can include focus groups,
interviews and case studies.

In comparison with quantitative and qualitative research, mixed research is a relatively

new research methodology and it includes in itself parts of both quantitative and
 24

qualitative methods. Creswell and Clark (2007, p. 5) define mixed research as a

research design with philosophical assumptions as well as methods of inquiry. As a
methodology, it involves philosophical assumptions that guide the direction of the
collection and analysis of data and the mixture of qualitative and quantitative
approaches in many phases in the research process. Studies, which are done by
carrying out mixed method research usually combine both quantitative and qualitative
data.

Figure 8. Three types or research

3.1 Research Plan

3.1.1 Interview

Interviews are one of the qualitative research methodic to obtain data. It can be defined
as conducting intensive individual interviews with a small number of respondents to
explore their perspectives on a particular idea, program or situation. (Boyce, C. & Neale,
P.,2006) One of the benefits of using interviews for the research is the possibility to get
 25

more detailed information about the research question. Also, during the interview, the
interviewee can get a chance to clarify certain moments right away, which is hard to do
when using other methods. However, it can be difficult to arrange an interview time which
would be suitable for both parties.

The objects of this interview are web designers who are involved in the UX and their
experience with using analytics data for UX improvement. The goal of the study is to
understand the view of designers on the relation between UX and analytics data and
how it’s utilized. The interview will consist of three sections: general questions, UX
perception, and UX improvement through analytics data.

The first section is the general questions section, which allows getting the basic
knowledge about the company interviewee works at, e.g. what industry it operates, what
is the target audience of the company and what is the role of the website in the
company’s operations.

The second section is concentrated on how the website UX viewed by the designers,
how important it is in web design and what UX methods are used for UX mapping.

The third section of the interview is dedicated to the relationship between website UX
and analytics data. The questions will help to gain an understanding of how the analytics
data is used by web designers for UX improvement and what metrics they pay the most
attention to.

3.1.2 Case study

In order to give a more in-depth answer to the research question, a case study will be
performed. A case study is another method of qualitative research, which can be defined
as:

“Intensive study about a person, a group of people or a unit, which is aimed to

generalize over several units”. (Gustafsson J., 2017)
 26

The case study for this thesis will be performed in a descriptive manner, which means
that certain events will be analyzed after some period of time has passed. In this case,
the google analytics data for the period of one year will be analyzed.

For the case study, the author chose the website of the Finnish B2B financial software
company, which provides financial software for financial institutions around the world.
(Further on, Company X). The company’s website is the main source of information
about the company and its software, hence, a good website UX is critical for the
company. The goal of the study is to showcase how the UX of the company website can
be improved based on the metrics analysis as well to give suggestions for improvement
where needed. The case study will be done with the Google Analytics tool, and with the
help of reporting functionality.

3.2 Limitations of the study

Throughout the study, the author encountered several limitations.

The lack of time didn’t let to implement more extensive research. Tight schedule of the
research led to getting a smaller sample size, which can make it difficult to make a
general conclusion on the perception of analytics data by web designers.

In order to get the research done in a shorter time, the author used a so-called
“convenience sample”. When the convenience sample is used, the easiest to reach
population members are chosen for the research. (Kotler & Armstrong 2012: 116) While
this sample allows finishing the research earlier, the disadvantage of using a
convenience sample is selection bias, which can affect the objectivity of the research.

The format of the research is another limitation the author encountered. Since the
research is done for the bachelor thesis, it was not possible to perform a wide, in-depth
research.
 27

4 Research Results

4.1 Case study

4.1.1 Company X website role in the business

The website of the Company X plays a critical role in the company operations, as it plays
both marketing, informational and internal documentation storage role. From the
marketing side, all the company advertisements lead to the main pages or its separate
pages with the ultimate goal to collet leads. From the informational point of view, the
website includes several descriptions of the company’s products and their functionality.
From the internal storage side, company clients use this website as a way to access the
Help Desk, which includes all software documentation. With this many different use
cases, it is essential for this website to be UX optimized.

4.2 Why to perform a case study

The goal is this case study is to show how web analytics data can give insights on user
behavior and how the UX gaps can be found.

4.3 Analysis process

For this case study, the author followed the HEART framework and chose to analyze
several metrics from four out of five metrics groups: Engagement, Adoption, Retention
and Task Success. The happiness part of the framework is skipped due to the fact that
it is a qualitative method and isn’t related to web analytics.

As a base for analysis, the company’s data from Google Analytics from 16th of April 2018
to 16th of April 2019 was taken. The reasoning behind choosing this period is because
several changes in the website have been done during that period of time, which
reflected on the analytics data too.

The metrics which were analyzed are shown in the diagram below:
 28

Engagement • Website Visits vs Visits Length

Adoption • New Visitors vs Pages/Session viewed

Retention • Returning Users Rate

• Conversions vs Conversion Rate during the

Task Success analysed period of time

Figure 9. Metrics which were analyzed in the study

4.4 Website Engagement

To measure how much website visitors are engaged with the website, the author chose
to analyze the number of visits to the website vs visits length and number of pages
viewed vs bounce rate.

Figure 10. Website sessions

 29

Figure 11. Session duration

The graphs above showcase the numbers of sessions and the average session duration
by month.

When it comes to sessions, they were steadily growing throughout the year. There were
periods when the traffic would drop e.g. summer holidays in July or Christmas holidays
in December but those are a traditional pattern which can be seen every year. Pretty
rapid growth has been noticed in March 2019 when the website became advertised more
heavily but also more to the target audience, hence, the number of sessions has
increased too.

The most surprising turned out to be the average session duration throughout the year.
The diagram below shows a gradual decrease in the amount of time which users spent
on the Company X website. If in April 2018 visitors would in average spend around 200
seconds on the website, in April 2019 visitors spent only around 150 seconds on the
website, which is an almost one-minute difference.

This kind of opposite relationship could mean that even though the audience is growing,
it is getting harder and harder to get visitors interested in the website content, which, of
course, reflects on the overall website User Experience. Thankfully, there are two ways
it could be fixed.
 30

The first way is to run the content analysis. With every year one of the growing
expectations from website visitors is a clear, visual content which allows finding the
necessary information faster. Company X could try to cut on the long text usage and add
more visuals like images and videos where it’s possible. Another way to keep visitors on
the website to check the layout of the website as the current website layout hasn’t been
changed in over 3 years. Nowadays, websites need to have a clean, not overloaded with
tabs or CTA’s layout, which is easy to navigate.

4.5 Website adoption

In order to understand how “UX friendly” the Company X website is to the new visitors,
a comparison between the number of pages per session for new visitors and returning
visitors have been made.

Figure 12. Pages viewed per session by new visitors and returning visitors.

As it can be seen on the diagram above, both new and returning visitors go in average
2-3 pages deep. From the performance point of view, the Company X website is doing
good as it falls under the benchmark numbers for these metrics, which is from 1.8 to 5
pages viewed per session.
 31

From the website UX point of view, the diagram shows that the website is adopted
similarly well by both new and returning visitors, which is a sign that the website is done
well structure wise, so visitors don’t need to travel from page to page in order to find
needed information.

4.6 Website Retention

Website Retention is important to know in order to understand how much visitors

continue using the website after visiting it once.

Unfortunately, Google Analytics cannot show the retention rate, so some calculations
have been needed. Retention rate is easy to find by dividing the number of returning
visitors by the number of total website visitors. In the case of Company X, the retention
rate is 15%.

Figure 13. Website Retention rate

One of the suggestions for Company X would be to take a closer look at this metric. From
the website UX point of view, a lower retention rate can be observed when the needs of
the website visitors are not met. One of the reasons why that could be happening
because the website doesn’t contain enough information visitors are looking. This
problem can be solved by taking a closer look at the target audience and customer
journey map for the better understanding of what kind of information visitors might be
looking for at the moment when they end up on the website.
 32

5 Task Success

One of the main functions of the Company X website is to collect leads, so that is the
main task which has to be done by website visitors. So, knowing how well the website
converts is critical. In order to figure it out, the number of conversions throughout the
period are compared to the conversion rate.

Figure 14. Conversions per month vs conversion rate

As can be seen from the diagram, both metrics have fluctuated a lot during the analyzed
period of time. In May 2018 the number of conversions has reached its peak of 100 and
never came back to the same level. Same goes for the conversion rate, which reached
its maximum of 3% in May 2018 and then kept staying in the range of around 0.8 – 2.3%.
This is a very important finding as such drops in conversions mean a definite issue with
the website design from the website UX point of view.

As it is known that during the year a lot of changes in the design of the pages have been
made, most probably it causes such a noticeable drop in conversions and conversion
rate. Company X should make an audit of the website in order to figure out what exact
changes in the design caused the conversion drop and make necessary adjustments to
increase conversions again.
 33

5.1 Conclusion

As the result of the analysis, it can be seen that there are some areas, where the
Company X website UX could have been improved. Especially it concerns the content,
which needs to go more on the visual side and web pages design, which needs to be
analyzed again in order to bring the conversion rate to the level of April-May 2018.

Overall, Google Analytics succeeded in showing current gaps in the Company X website
UX and proved to be useful for the website UX improvement process.

5.2 Interviews

There were two interviews conducted in order to understand how web analytics and UX
are connected with each other in the eyes of those involved in web design.

5.3 Interview with a Chief Business Development Officer

The first interview has been carried out with Chief Business Development Officer (further
– interviewee) in the Finnish B2B company, which offers a brokerage platform designed
for brokering any kind of financial services. As it happens often in the smaller companies,
one employee can play several roles, so in the case of this company, Chief Business
Development Officer also plays the role of a designer for the website, and she is
responsible for its performance. There were 13 questions in total asked, which help to
understand how the process of UX improvement in the company is implemented and
how UX efficiency is measured. The questions list can be found in the Appendix 1
section.

5.3.1 General knowledge about the company

The first set of questions was related to the company itself for the purpose of
understanding its target audience and the role of website in business operations. The
target audience of the company is a consumer or a SME looking to finding a suitable
 34

financial service. For example, loan, mortgage, savings account, credit card, insurance,
and so forth. The main role of the company’s website is to target B2B partners (financial
organizations, marketing agencies, media companies) to get more information about the
company and lead collection. The company also has end-client facing websites, where
the client actually fills in for example the loan application, which is highly crucial for the
business as all the services are fully web-based.

5.4 Perception of UX and its challenges

The second set of questions was more related to the theoretical part of UX. The purpose
of those questions was to understand how interviewee views the importance of UX in
website design and what are the challenges of the website UX nowadays.

The interviewee shared that for her, User Experience plays a crucial part when it comes
to websites as without good User Experience the customer/partner might not even
understand what the company or the service could do for them and it never leads into
sales.

For the interviewee, the most important features of a UX optimized website is that it’s
easy to use, it’s straightforward and understandable for the target client. It's also
important that it works across all devices. After these factors are in order, also it should
be neat for the target client to use.

When it comes to website UX challenges, in her opinion, usually the ones building the
websites are the experts in that industry and forget that the user of the website might not
be, so reaching a certain level of simplicity is an issue. Also, from the technical side, how
to make the site work fast but also scale to all devices and work flawlessly is another
challenge.

5.4.1 Website UX improvement with web analytics data

The third set of questions was dedicated to the role of web analytics data in the company
website improvement process and what metrics the interviewee usually measures.
 35

When it comes to using web analytics tools, the interviewee visits google analytics every
day for metrics check as well as other tools provided by different marketing partners,
plus database & database searches as well as their internally built analytics tool.

For the interviewee, the main goal of improving of company’s website UX is to improve
conversions, so the main type of metrics she tracks are the ones related to conversion
improvement. She can easily see from the analytics how small changes are affecting the
client behavior on the website.

Despite finding web analytics to be a good way to spot the website UX imperfections,
there are still limitations of its use. In the interviewee’s opinion, web analytics data does
not tell explicitly about how the target client feels and experiences the website/service.

5.4.2 Conclusion

Overall, the interview gave a clear picture of how the importance of User Experience is
viewed in smaller companies. It also helped to see that web analytics data takes a firm
place in the company’s website design process and it is a helpful source of
understanding visitor’s behavior despite its limit in understanding how visitors feel and
experience the website. However, such data can be obtained by using another UX
research methods – website satisfaction surveys.

5.5 Interview with the UX Designer / Developer

The second interview was carries out with the UX Designer / Developer from another
Finnish B2B company working on presentation software. The same set of 13 questions
has been asked to the interviewee.

5.5.1 General knowledge about the company

The company offers a presentation platform / app targeted at business and sales use.
The company also provides presentation creation services using the platform. One of the
main company website roles from is to help potential customers to reach out to the
 36

company (through chat or contact requests), and for the company itself to find potential
leads that can be contacted (e.g. through company IP address). Company’s social
marketing campaigns also often link to custom landing pages the website, helping to
evaluate different marketing strategies. It's also a source of information about the app.

5.6 Perception of UX and its challenges

For the interviewee personally, website User Experience is quite a vast area and can
start with how easy it is to even find the website. Essentially, it's a user's experiences,
thoughts, feelings and response from doing or trying to do something, start to end. It's in
most websites, apps and services' best interest to make sure that the user needs that
overlap with the website or business goals have as good a user experience as possible,
to increase retention and willingness to pay.

He also shared that different kinds of visitors will have a different view on an UX-
optimized website. For example, intuitiveness and discoverability are very important for
new users while for "seasoned power users", a steep learning curve may be okay if it
results in high productivity. In either case, clarity and consistency, making things easy to
recognize, is very important. Of course, the most important is that the user is satisfied
and got something out of it, even if it's not exactly the need or goal that they had in mind.

When it comes to UX research methods used in the company, usually for improved
features they rely on at least brainstorming, stakeholder discussions, prototyping and
concept or usability testing. For the bigger picture they have a roadmap that's informed
by our strategic goals and user feedback.

The interviewer also agreed that there are challenges existing in the website UX these
days. One of them is that good UX takes time. He believes that a data-driven design
methodology is very powerful and can create great results, but to get to reliable results
you also need a great amount of data. As such smaller websites and services may be
better off with focused user tests and expert reviews. Knowing when to pick one
methodology over another can be tricky, not to mention that the experience and skills
needed can be quite different.
 37

5.6.1 Website UX improvement with web analytics data

In the case of interviewee’s company, web analytics data analysis is still in the beginning
of its development. Until recently, the analytics data was used in its limited form: which
pages are visited how much, what types of devices are used, where are they from etc.
However, the company recently improved their web analytics to provide more
information. Some of the web analytics tools which are used in his company are Google
Analytics and Leadfeeder. They’re also currently testing such tools as Albacross and
Freshmarketer.

For the interviewee, when it comes to improving UX then the most important thing is
understanding where the users struggle. For this reason, he prefers to track retention
and/or satisfaction can let measure how well you are doing on the whole compared to
the past.

UX improvement has also affected the website design decisions in the past. One of the
examples the interviewee shared was realizing that very few people scroll down on some
pages have influenced what he put on the website higher up. Check device resolution
and browsers also have let him drop support in the app for some small and outdated
devices to the benefit of the majority.

Just like the first interviewee, this interviewee agreed that there are limitations of using
the web analytics. It can be difficult, both knowing what to track, how to track it and what
to do about it. Many of the standard tools, such as GA, don't even provide the detail you
need by default. When it comes to dynamic one-page apps and websites you need even
more custom code, as the pages aren't static.

5.6.2 Conclusion

Overall, the interviewer gave a lot of insights on the position of UX in his company. He
also made an interesting point that different kinds of visitors will have a different definition
of an UX-optimized website.
 38

6 Discussion and Conclusion

The purpose of this research was to understand the importance of the optimized User
Experience on the website and how it can be improved with the help of web analytics
data.

The research began by taking a look at the literature review on the web design, digital
measurement and user experience. After analysing several books, articles and journals
on the topic, the author noticed that there’s one common goal in all cases: to make the
user, visiting a website, stay and get interested in the business’s product/service.
Therefore, web design and UX are closely related in a way that a good web design result
in a good UX

Based on the interviews carries out, the author can conclude that nowadays companies
care about website UX and are familiar with its concept. As the company website often
used as a place for getting potential customers, businesses realise nowadays, when
almost every company has a website, it can be possible to stand out with a flawless
website UX.

The research results also indicate web analytics data can be a valid, useful source of
information for the website UX improvement. It can be used for seeing how visitors
interact with the website, which pages are the most interesting for them and which ones
need further improvement. However, there are still limitations on web analytics data
usage. While there are several kinds of metrics which track visitor’s all visitor’s behaviour
from the page a visitor entered to the page which from it exited the website, analytics
data can’t show where and why visitors struggle as this kind of data can be only obtained
by conducting a survey or interviewing a visitor.

There are many different web analytics tools in the market, but the overall data analysis
is still in the development stage. It is hard for the industry to keep up with the websites,
which use more and more complicated technologies.

To summarise, improving User Experience is an important part to take into consideration

when working on the website design and one of the ways to do that it to use web analytics
data for tracking visitor’s behaviour.
 39

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 Appendix 1
1 (1)

Interview questions, 13 questions:

General knowledge about the company

• Could you introduce yourself? What is your role in the company?

• What is your company offering? What is the target audience for the
company?
• What role your company's website is playing in the user acquisition
process?

Perception of UX and its challenges

• How would you personally define User Experience and its importance in
web design?
• What for you are the features of the UX optimised website?
• What UX methods are you usually following?
• What, in your opinion, are the biggest challenges of website UX nowadays?
• Have you ever done the UX research on your website?

Website UX improvement with web analytics data

• Have you ever used or using web analytics data for the website UX
improvement?
• How often do you check your web analytics data? What tool(s) are you
using?
• When it comes to website UX improvement, what metrics are the most
important to track in your opinion? (or what metrics are you tracking for
website UX improvement?)
• Do you have an example how web analytics helped you to improve website
UX? Could you give one?
• In your opinion, what are the challenges or limitations of using web
analytics for website UX improvement?