Data-Driven Design Decisions and Analytics Tools

With the rise of data analysis software services in UI/UX design, more are more designers are moving away from intuition-based design to data-driven design. Modern UI/UX design is based on data-driven decisions. Data Driven design is a set of processes or you can call it a best practice where the designers rather than using their intuition use data for designing user interfaces and user interactions.

In this article, we will discuss what is a Data Driven Design. How to create Data Driven Design? and the best Analytics tools for Data Driven Design.

Data-Driven Design

What is Data-Driven Design?

Data Driven design is a set of processes or you can call it a best practice where the designers rather than using their intuition use data for designing user interfaces and user interactions. The advantage of data-driven designing is that it removes the errors that could have taken place due to the personal biases or preferences of the designers and increases user likeability by using data, data reduces the chance of anything going wrong in the final prototype.

Types of Data for Design

There are two types of data when it comes to Data Driven Design:

1. Quantitative data: As the name suggests, Quantitative data refers to the data which is finite and measurable and gives the designer important insights about the behavior of the user in the website or web application. Quantitative data is from the standpoint hard evidence and identifying patterns, we will have data about the demographics of your customers, their age, gender etc. and we will have to make informed decisions based on these data points.
2. Qualitative data: Qualitative data is more about information that cannot be measured, for example user motivation to use a particular feature since it is at the top of the page. Qualitative data gives the designer important insights on the feeling and opinion of the user and using this data we the designer can make changes in the design that makes the user feel motivated to use any particular feature.

How to Create Data Driven Designs?

The process of creating a Data Driven Design can be divided into 4 major steps:

1. User Research: The process of data driven designing starts with user research. The designer takes detailed notes of the user research. there’s a lot of information that will be gathered so the designer has to analyze the information, understand the trend, and organize data using tools to identify trends and patterns in that data. The role of the designer is to create reports and presentations to present that complex information to other people in the team.
2. Wireframing and Prototyping: Wireframes are detailed structural sketches that illustrate a concept. A wireframe for a digital product is similar to a blueprint for a house. Wireframe clearly illustrates how the product functions and the core elements of its design.
3. Visual Designing and testing: The UI/UX designer then comes up with creative and innovative design solutions. he/she designs the User Interface and creates different visual touch points and establish the interactivity with them.
4. Testing and using Data Driven decisions: Now we can use techniques like A/B testing for testing our final prototype. A/ B testing or split testing is a method of comparing two versions of a webpage or an app with each other to find out which performs better. A/B testing is done after the product is launched, therefore we make smaller changes to the product. Now using the data we got in testing, we can take data driven decision to iterate our design.

Top 3 Analytics Tools

Here are the top three Analytics tool you can use for creating a Data Driven Design:

1. Google Analytics 4: Google Analytics 4 is one of the most popular tools for analyzing any website or application in order to get data for making data driven decision. The latest version of Google Analytics as of January 2024 is Google Analytics 4 that was introduced in 2020. Google Analytics 4 will help you analyze your customer while he or she navigates your website and provide you with various trends from that data on what should be improved.
2. Adobe Analytics: Adobe analytics is a popular choice for analyzing the user’s journey in a website or application. With Adobe Analytics, you can know and understand how the user or customer is navigating your application . Unlike Google Analytics which is free to use for individual designers, Adobe Analytics is not paid.
3. UXCam: Another great tool for analyzing your website or application in order to make data driven decisions is UXCam. It is used by companies like Classplus, Navi, Big Basket and many more. With this tool, you can get all the data about your website at one place in a very structured format. UXCam also has a free trial so that you can try it before actually buying it

Best Practices

• Consistent Elements: Make sure that the buttons you have in your design are consistent and you have a system for your buttons. You should choose a primary call to action style and be consistent with it. If you have a secondary call to action style for your buttons, make it different by choosing a more muted color or making it smaller, or simply just making it a link. This helps create a set hierarchical order in your design.
• A/ B testing or split testing: we can use techniques like A/B testing for testing the final prototype. A/ B testing or split testing is a method of comparing two versions of a webpage or an app with each other to find out which performs better. A/B testing is done after the product is launched, therefore we make smaller changes to the product.
• Usability test: Usability test basically is evaluating a product/service by testing it with some users and implementing the feedback provided by them. In the Usability test, participants have to complete some tasks created by professionals and these professionals watch the users and take notes.
• User Centered design: User Centered design is a series of processes or steps taken by the designers team in order to put the user at the center of the development of the product. With user centered design every decision is made keeping the user and the goals of the user in mind.
• Feedback and iterating: Taking feedback from the users can provide valuable insights about the design and what things should be improved. In order to continuously improve the design we have to that user feedback and iterate our design.

Conclusion

Data Driven design is a set of processes or you can call it a best practice where the designers rather than using their intuition use data for designing user interfaces and user interactions. And with Analytics tools like Google Analytics 4, Adobe Analytics and UXCam, it easier then ever to get all the data of your website to make your design better. Make sure to use Data driven decision making tips we discussed in this article in your next design project.