This article covers KPIs for a User Experience design team (UX Team). The KPIs help measure and track if the UX Team is enabling a user driven organization. The KPIs mentioned here are best applicable to organizations that do software products for another business (hence Business to Business).
What are KPIs?
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are statistics which when measured and tracked guide about progress towards an objective. Say during an individual’s fitness journey tracking number of seconds spent in ‘plank’ exercise could be an indication of progress.
In addition KPIs help one do a retrospective and identify course corrections, improvements required to move more effectively towards the objective.
Reference UX Process
Based on User Centered Design, the process and artifacts below are what one possibly can have in an organization. Every organization may have variations of this depending on what works with their users and for them.
| Discover -> | Define | Ideate | Test | Develop & Deploy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -Product Analytics -Competitor Analysis -User Interviews -Discovery Workshops | -Personas -User Journeys -User Stories -Design Workshops | -Sketching -Conceptual map -Wireframes -Visual Design -High Fidelity prototypes | -Usability Report -Direct Feedback | -Detailed Specifications -Acceptance test -Implementation |
KPIs of UX Process
The approach taken here to defines the KPIs is a simple 4 step process
- Objective: define a long term objective you want to work towards.
- Goals: define the short to long term goals based on the objective.
- Actions: define actions that will help achieve a goal or set of goals
- KPIs: for each action define KPIs such that it show progress towards the goal
Objective: UX is in the fabric of the organization. US and design is driven by interdisciplinary teams
| Goals | KPIs | Actions |
|---|---|---|
| – Everyone in the development organization understands UX and UX Process – In every software at any stage of evolution a consistent design process is followed – Everyone in the development organization is able to describe the software user and user needs. | Organization – # of UX practitioners / designers / evangelists Vs Developers – Members attended UX L&D sessions – Products have had 1 or more design workshops Product – Features for which user interviews conducted – Feature specification have UX artefacts referenced / created / updated – Features for which usage anlaytics collected – Usability issues raised by customer – Issues reported through usability testing | – Conduct UX L&D sessions – UX practitioner and evangelist certification – Conduct design workshops – Product re(design) following UX Process – Follow UX Process for each major product backlog feature – Build and collect product usage analytics – Usability testing part of “Quality Gate’ |
Measure and Track KPIs
Below is one of the ways to measure and track KPIs. The method explained especially works for an organization following Agile methodology for product development.
| Add UX Design to organization skill matrix | 0-None 1-UX Practitioner 2-UX Evangelist 3-UX Designer 4-UX Architect |
| Organize UX LEarning and Development session | Maintain a list of participants |
| Add to product “Definition of Ready” | “Know your user” questions raised? Count of KYU questions Open vs Answered? Persona, User Story, User Journey reviewed Sketch or Wireframe reviewed |
| Add to product “Definition of done” | Added collection of feature usage analytics Usability Testing completed and passed |
| By customer usability support issues dashboard | Tag each customer usability issue |
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