App Analytics for UX Designers

Getting constant user feedback is one of the most important aspects of optimizing user experience on your app. Once you have an insight into what your users find convenient and appealing, and what is bland and frustrating for them, you can go about fixing those aspects and ensuring that you retain your active users. While surveys and pop-ups are one way to generate user feedback, developers and designers are increasingly turning towards App Analytics. Let’s take a closer look at App Analytics and how it can help UX Designers in optimizing their app’s UX

What is App Analytics

App Analytics is a mechanism for evaluating user behaviour on your app. It gives you a comprehensive insight into what features of your app the users interact with, what actions they take, how long they spend on it, where they drop off, which parts frustrate them, etc.

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With these insights you can easily figure if your users are facing any issues, what they are, and what you can do about them. Before we discuss how UX Designers can benefit from App analytics, let’s take a look at some of the tools that App Analytics software offer : 

Session Replays 

Video recordings (with time stamps) of individual user sessions that can be replayed to gain an insight on their interaction with the app.

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Heatmaps  

Visual Representation of how active different parts of your page are, with “Red” zones being the most active and “Blue” zones being the least active 

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App crash analytics  

Reports on app version, device, OS, etc that were being used when your app crashed. It also includes the specific action that was taken at the time of the crash. 

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Funnel Analysis

Offer insight into the conversion rates at each point of the user journey, indicating where users are dropping out.

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Real time analytics

Gives insight into live user interaction, for eg - the number of people that are using your app at any moment in real time. 

What are the benefits of App Analytics for UX Designers

The basics of UX design are simple - Know your user’s expectations, follow the Usability Heuristics, and listen to feedback. Let’s look at how App analytics tools help you stick with these basics - 

1. Remove Obstacles: With Heatmaps and session replays you can get insights into what design elements are confusing or frustrating your users. Fixing these features reduces exit rates and leads to more successful conversions. Some Software like UserExperior offer drill downs that notify you of areas that receive the most rage clicks and long presses. These represent elements that are either not responding, causing crashes, or frustrating users. App crash analytics and ANR tools are also important to get more data about these problems. Once you know what these areas are, you can fix them to make user journeys inside your app smooth and obstacle free. You must also ensure that the most important features of your app, eg - the shopping cart must be accessible from all pages of the app. 

2. Get more Conversions: With Session replays and Funnel analysis, you get a comprehensive idea on which step of a funnel your users get stuck in or drop out at. You can then make sure that these pages have a clear focus area and directions for the user to continue. You must also ensure that these steps are absolutely necessary for the conversion funnel, and are not acting as distractions or points of frustration for the user. In this way you can optimize these steps and get more conversions. 

3. Increase Usability and Accessibility: Some design elements that may seem perfect to you, may not make sense to a lot of users. When you couple Heatmaps with Session replays, you can evaluate which design elements are not getting the clicks that they need, and ensure that they are visible, accessible and appealing enough to have the user’s attention. You can try placing your CTA (Call-to-action) buttons at areas that receive more interaction. On the other hand, some text, image or stray arrow may appear as a clickable link and may waste precious time that users spend on clicking these unresponsive links. You can then take some attention away from them or make them CTAs themselves. 

4. Put your information in the right place: Heatmaps also give you a fair understanding of how far your users are scrolling and where they are dropping off. With this information you can make sure that you put all your important information and CTA buttons in more interactive zones and not at the end of the page. You can also evaluate why users may be dropping off at a specific point and make it more engaging, and appealing. 

5. Check Platform Compatibility: Unlike Web analysis, Mobile App analytics takes into account the different OS platforms of the devices where your app is being run. Different platforms may have different appeals for certain design elements.With App crash analytics, ANR analytics and heatmaps you can compare which design elements work for which platform and tweak them accordingly. 

Getting started with App  Analytics

When you’re just starting out with UX Designing, App Analytics may seem daunting or complex. Tools like UserExperior are a great way to get started. With features like Session Replays, Heatmaps, App crash and ANR, and Funnels, you’ll be able to discover how users experience your mobile app.

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UserExperior’s App analytics tools are not only a blessing for your design team, but they also help assist your product, engineering, support, and marketing teams. If you’re a beginner and skeptical of investing money in expensive software, sign up for UserExperior’s 14 day free trial here. 

App Analytics is an essential way of making sure that your users are heard and get to experience the best version of your app. We hope this was helpful in explaining what app analytics is and how UX designers can use it for optimizing user experience. For further information, read our guide on How to optimize your UX by using Heatmaps