WP Statistics

Problem

User messages and tickets revealed a range of issues, from usability challenges to missing critical functionalities. Upon investigating user behavior through Hotjar's heatmaps, we identified a disappointingly low click-through rate on the charts and report tables, suggesting a critical disconnect between its intended purpose and actual user interaction.

Solution

To address these pain points, we embarked on an in-depth research project to thoroughly understand our users' needs and develop targeted solutions. We focused on user-requested features such as automated traffic reports, customizable monitoring preferences, advanced filtering options, and many other enhancements.

Outcome

Through a series of data-driven design changes, we successfully increased user interaction with the chart by 43%, improved user satisfaction, and longer feature engagement, as evidenced by user recordings and heatmaps.

Process Overview

Challenges and Lessons Learned

01/05

Engage & Empathyze

Competitive Audit

I analysed the most potential competitors for WP Statistics, in order to have a better overview and more understand the Strengths, Weaknesses & Similarities between web analytics plugins in the industry.

User Interview

To better uncover users behaviors, motivations, and expectations, which will enable us to create a user-centric and feature-rich plugin, I conducted 4 interviews with our current users. I wanted to gain insight into questions such as:

How do you currently track and analyze user behavior on your website?
What specific metrics are most important to you when analyzing website performance?
Can you describe any challenges you've encountered while using existing analytics tools?
What features do you believe are essential for an effective web analytics plugin?

Structure

Semi-Structured method
Date: 7th - 9th February, 2022
Interviews conducted and recorded remotely via Zoom

Interview Criteria

Has > 1 years experience of using web analytics plugins
Knowledge of scenarios where analytics data is valuable (e.g., website traffic analysis, user behavior tracking)

Research Insights

Interview Details

I organized all the information we collected and made sense of it by coding all the answers, and extracted the problems from them; drew out the insights from the problems.

Findings

Takeaways

Users need quicker access to real-time user stats.

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Integrate a persistent real-time users widget or offer a customizable dashboard.

Users need consistent and automated traffic reports to enhance decision-making processes.

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Implement a feature for scheduled, automated traffic report generation and delivery.

Users need the flexibility to tailor their monitoring settings to focus on specific metrics relevant to their needs.

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Provide advanced settings, such as enabling users to access advanced report and notification options.

Users prioritize a bundled option for add-ons to save costs while also valuing the ability to purchase individual add-ons as needed.

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Offer a bundled pricing option for add-ons to save costs, with the flexibility to purchase individual add-ons.

Users need to track and analyze specific downloads from their website to understand user preferences effectively.

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Implement author, post type, and page filters to enable users to analyze the downloads of specific items.

Users need a visual tool to easily grasp the publishing frequency, helping them identify patterns and gaps.

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Visualize publishing frequency as a heat map, enabling users to quickly spot trends, peak times, and gaps in their content schedule.

Users require clear metrics to evaluate author performance and contributions.

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Visualize a table displaying each author's content, views, and word count to provide a comprehensive overview of their productivity.

Users need actionable insights and clear indications of compliance to ensure their plugins meet privacy standards.

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Offer actionable insights for process adjustments and clear compliance indicators on the "Privacy Audit" page.

Persona

Meet Alex.

Referencing the key insights gained from user interviews, I crafted a fictional persona that represents potential users who use web analytics plugins. This would provide a relatable personification of my interviewee's motivations, behaviors and pain points.

02/05

Conceptualization

Low fidelity sketches

The next step was to create quick digital wireframes of the key touch points and make sure we're going in the right direction. It was great to see how the users' needs give shape to the actual interface.

User interface visual direction

Me and another designer were given a green light to explore bold interface ideas and start the conversation about the product capabilities both internally (PM, Eng, stakeholders) and externally. This is an early design direction, shared with users that provided valuable feedback for the next set of iterations.

04/05

Usability Testing

Goal: Identify key pain points and target areas for future improvement.

For our usability testing, our goal was to pinpoint key issues and areas for enhancement. We provided five users from our target audience with a series of tasks to complete and requested that they use Loom to record their sessions, including both their screen activity and facial expressions.

Task Lists

Task 1: Monitor weekly traffic and details about visitors' operating systems, search engines, and other relevant metrics.
Task 2: Export necessary data in CSV format.
Task 3: Monitor the names, types, and counts of files downloaded from your site.
Task 4: Evaluate author productivity by tracking the number of views each of their posts receives.
Task 5: Adjust settings to ensure compliance with privacy standards.

Design Revision

Updated High-Fidelity Mockups

Based on user testing, I organized my usability problems by order of importance, plotted the necessary changes on a design prioritization matrix, then made a series of revisions. Here is two of the changes we applied:

Add advance date picker

Allow users to choose from default calendar timeframes or set custom date ranges, with options to compare to "last year" or "previous period.

Improve Privacy Audit clarity

We added color-coded buttons, clear icons for "Passed" and "Action Required," and a compliance status bar to help users quickly identify needed adjustments.

Results and Metrics

After 30 days, the results were promising:

Quantitative Improvements:

Increased User Interaction: User engagement with the chart surged significantly, leaping from 20% to 28.6%. This represents an impressive 43% increase in interaction.
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Enhanced Discovery of Features: The click-through rate for the advanced charts and reports experienced a substantial boost, rising from 7% to 11%. That’s a 57% increase in user exploration.

Qualitative Insights:

Beyond the quantitative data, our observations revealed positive qualitative trends:
Improved User Satisfaction: Feedback surveys indicated an overall rise in user satisfaction. Clarity, usability, and information provision within the chart received commendation.
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Deeper User Engagement: User recordings and heatmaps unveiled a fascinating trend—users now spend more time actively exploring the charts and tables features and functionalities.

Challenges and Lessons Learned

This experience highlighted the significant impact of understanding cognitive biases on design. A surprising insight was the considerable impact of small features and minor changes on user satisfaction and loyalty. Enhancements like improved tooltips, customizable elements, and intuitive navigation greatly increased user engagement.
Furthermore, the importance of continuously monitoring user behavior was reaffirmed. Observing the user's instinctive dragging behavior on the charts and reports proved to be an invaluable resource for informing our design decisions.
We are confident that there are still opportunities to refine the charts, reports, settings, and further enhance the user experience. Balancing data richness with performance and user experience required careful, iterative testing and refining.