I agree.

Analytics is as huge as the black hole and as interesting as the Illuminaties. It has the power to distract and hijack conversations related to the much intriguing topic of User Behaviour.

A) Conversations that delight and probe me are:

B) What are our users exactly doing on our website?

C) Traffic to my website is X. What is the potential of conversion?

During one such conversation at our UI UX studio in Bangalore, with a UX analyst about the potential of analytics and research in Understanding User Behavior both in the Digital and Physical world we agreed that it is imperative to bound ourselves with meaningful parameters to analyze.

Those parameters must have the ability to propel decisions.

An insightful summary of the conversation below:

One must consider the following pointers before starting Analytics and Research

Scope:

Metrics that help me define and take me closer to my answer

Bucketing Metrics:

Devising the right questions and metric considerations for Business, User, Operations and other imperative foundations that need design thinking

Output:

How do I get the analytics team to make their insights ready for me to take actions The last point is very critical, as I have seen beautiful and thoughtful presentations on user behaviours, research etc end up without actionable pointers that can be then translated to our design teams.

Much has been discussed in DesignOps cycle. However my advice to teams on either side, Analysts and Creatives is to step back and see how data and analytics can supplement the current methods, process, or even influence design driven decisions.

It is important that one does not seclude, the real potential of analytics.

Let’s look at the few and the most important process by which Analytics and Design teams say thumbs up prior to the mammoth task of Designing.

At OriginUX, we always wanted to be a UI UX Agency with a difference thrusting on logical decisions, smart questions and user / business-centric approaches. Hence we go by the Fundamental Sprint of understanding existing Digital Assets of the client and then auditing visitor behaviours.

Following are our best practices as a UI UX Agency in Bangalore that we use for our Secondary Research:

Heatmap tools:

To understand the behaviour and potential target areas to increase adoption, engagement and conversions on the web asset.

Google Analytics:

To discover patterns of user journey within the asset, time spent, and areas of bounce and disinterest leading to an ultimate understanding of user patterns.

With in-house tools and few approaches that we have devised over years of UX practice, we implement the best practices to understand traffic source, triggers of engagement, the point of conversions and engagements etc to arrive at the know-how of the users.

Understanding where really the users are spending their time and how well is the UX and UI helping them convert or meet their objectives easily and delightfully.

As a UI UX agency in Bangalore that focuses on User Centric Design, the primary method of analytics and insights that we look forward to being;

Eye tracking and detection and Surveys for a sample potential target audience.

With these data points, screenshots and heat maps, the insights garnered become the holy grail for Designers and UX experts to craft designs that look beautiful and perform brilliantly.