As much as we wish that we can be assessed at work by our skill alone, that is often not possible. Our clients, managers, and developers are all set to understand us better if we provide them with a much more concise picture of our work. And that picture is painted by numbers. So if you’re a UX designer wondering how to present the scope of your work to others, remember that you need to show that you bring measurable value to the products for which you design user interfaces.
So, how do you calculate the ROI of UX using metrics? There are a few useful ways to do so, and we will present some easy ones below. Read this, and if you implement it wisely, you can use these stats of yours to get the resources you need for better working conditions – be it another team member, a bigger paycheck, or something else.
How Do You Calculate the ROI of UX?
Honestly, it depends. What are the OKRs (objectives and key results) and KPIs (key performance indicators)? In general, you need to link the needs of users with the financial gain of a business. Figuring out how to calculate the ROI of UX helps justify the financial investment the company needs to make into your UX department.
A UX expert thus needs to know how to reconcile the positive gains from well-implemented user experience and the commercial impact the business has experienced.
Without further ado, here are the three most beneficial methods for measuring the ROI of user experience endeavors.
Google HEART
Google HEART is great because it found a way to tackle many different metrics into one acronym. “HEART” stands for:
- H – happiness
- E – engagement
- A – adoption
- R – retention
- T – task success
This Google ROI measurement framework also analyses, as you can see from above, user and brand bonding. But even with its inclusion of a seemingly frivolous “HAPPINESS” metric, HEART impresses with didacticism. For instance, “HAPPINESS” tells you how your user behaves, it gives information about their character via specific satisfaction surveys like the Net Promoter Score and tells you how simple the user found your interface.
Google HEART points to another three elements that should be observed:
- Goals – Google HEART rewards more comprehensive goals. The more determined you are, the more precise your results are.
- Signs – A numerical measure for your growth. Variables such as a visitor’s browsing time on the homepage or the general numbers of shares on a blog post.
- Metrics – For instance, the number of visitors who read an article or performed a step you wanted them to make.
NPS
Now, let’s dive deeper into one of the metrics mentioned above. (NPS) is every UX designer’s great friend.
This metric tells you the likelihood of a user recommending your product, service, or experience to somebody else. If you’re wondering what NPS looks like in real life, just think back to the times when you’ve read the message “Will you be recommending these services to a friend?”
But what the question really translates to is: “Do you approve of the experience we gave you on this website or web app?”
This is not a hard element to implement to your website, and you gain from it a lot, especially if you let people grade you on a scale from 0 to 10.
To calculate your NPS, you need to divide the cumulative number of grades into three categories:
- Promoters: These users grade you with a 9 or 10
- Liabilities: Visitors who give you a 7 or 8 are moderately happy and their feedback is not taken into the equation.
- Detractors: If a visitor gives you a score anywhere between 0 and 6 – they are pretty disenchanted by your service. So they can be a useful indicator that your UX needs some improvement.
NPS is calculated by subtracting the detractors from the promoters (in percentages).
SUS
The System Usability Scale (SUS) is a numerical usability scale created all the way back in 1986 and remains popular to this day.
SUS assists to measure criteria like:
- Effectiveness – Tells you if end users can complete their goals.
- Efficiency – Lets you know which efforts and resources were required.
- Satisfaction – Tells you if the user experience was satisfactory.
The SUS takes the form of a questionnaire of 10 inquiries, and users give scores between 1 and 5.
For every odd question, you need to subtract 1 from the given score (x-1).
For each even question, subtract 5 from the given grade (5-x).
After that, add up those 10 values and multiply by 2.5.
Final Word
While these are one of the three most effective ways to calculate the ROI, they are far from the only ones.
And finding ways to effectively calculate the ROI in UX won’t just help users reach the end goal, it will help your organization see your true value. But don’t go overboard – be aware of the limits of data.
Overall, though, metrics move the intangible in UX to the realm of tangible.