How to measure user experience (UX)

Some examples of how UX can be measured are detailed below, but it depends on your organisation’s context. Monitoring how your website is being used User engagement Website usability User adoption User Retention Please tell us what you want to measure and why, and we’ll devise a custom solution to suit your organisation. The ‘why’ is very important, as this will help benchmark where you are now versus where you want to be.

How can we benchmark our user experience against that of our competitors?

Comparative testing is critical. Here at CDS, with our structured research and thematic analysis approach, we take end-users through one experience – allowing them to comment on what’s in front of them. Then, we add in a competitor’s experience – we also advise including more than one competitor, where possible, to obtain a more in-depth analysis. Enabling people to articulate their preferences – and reasons why – allows us to obtain a rich insight into how your experience compares against other organisations, and whether there are any unmet user needs. Once we have this, we will report back to you on our findings – what was subjective, any commonalities/trends – to help you be in the best possible position to leapfrog any competitors who aren’t doing what users need and want.

How can you recruit hard-to-reach groups/users with accessibility needs?

We have an evolving database of users inclusive and representative of our country. Our index includes individuals with specific access needs, those who register as lower on the digital confidence scale, urban and rural residents, and black and ethnic minority groups, among others. We have a dedicated participant acquisition team who will find the right people for your project and send out bespoke outreach. We know it’s essential for people to have their voices heard in research, so that products and services will have their needs in mind.

When is the best time to conduct research?

This depends on what you want to find out, but research and insight form the bedrock of any change project or transformative work – so it shouldn’t be left until the end. Positively, we‘re seeing a trend toward more clients embracing a comprehensive Discovery phase which means that rather than organisations’ jumping into a solution, they gain a much more circumspect view. For instance, your business may have an idea of what it wants to achieve, but what should be asked in tandem is, ‘is there an audience appetite for this?’ There may be lots of sound commercial reasons behind an idea, but it’s vital to ensure there’s a need for that product or service first. Research unearths your audience’s unmet needs, and helps you truly understand them. Finally, this ‘fact-finding’ exercise shouldn’t be seen as something you only carry out once. Testing should be carried out little and often – constantly checking in to assess performance and facilitate improvement to ensure you’re genuinely delighting your audiences.

How can you complement my internal resource?

While CDS may start the experience insight/research process, we’re big believers in democratising research and data. We encourage your teams to understand the needs of your organisation’s users, thinking in a customer-centred way. It’s part of our job to upskill your teams. We involve them in the conversations and processes leading up to, during, and after the research – listening to their questions and encouraging their input. This phased approach means that your team’s confidence will grow in tandem as the project matures. The end goal is that your team can cover the day-to-day, and we’re then on hand as a consultative resource, as and when you need us.

How long will it take?

This depends entirely on how you define your user group. If you have one focused audience – without the complexity of varying characteristics – the discovery process, identification, research, and reporting could be done in 4-5 weeks. However, the research and thematic analysis will naturally take longer if you have many different user groups. Having thorough intelligence about your audience will equip your organisation with the tools it needs to reach and resonate with your audience – providing them with an experience that truly delights them, not one based upon assumptions of their likes and dislikes. Therefore, no matter the length of the project, the findings will benefit your organisation for years to come.

What do you need from me?

While some organisations may have existing insights – from planning or market research teams – others will be starting with a blank canvas. Even if there is nothing formally labelled ‘insight’, there are pockets of knowledge within an organisation, for example, customer contact teams constantly speaking with your customers. If you have any information, it would be great to share it with us, but if you don’t, that’s no problem. Naturally, with or without existing research, there will always be opinions and hypotheses that reside within a company. Our role is to guard against the use of opinion, and, instead, bring undisputable evidence into the process to unearth the truth.

Research and Insight Services | UX | User research | Design

Putting customer needs at the heart of your solution helps you deliver better products and more efficient services. User research and insights are your most valuable assets for uncovering your audiences' conscious and subconscious wants and needs so that you can build truly human-centred solutions. With a better understanding of end-user needs – customers, employees, or citizens – you can put their voices at the centre of experiences which enable, enhance, and support deeper engagement, greater satisfaction and aligned expectations.

Our comprehensive approach to human-centred research embraces accessibility and inclusivity, drawing insight from all parts of your audience – including hard-to-reach users – to reveal traits, behaviours, biases, and unconscious responses to stimuli.

With experts in user research, service design, user experience (UX) design, interaction design, performance consulting, and inclusivity and accessibility consulting, we can build a 360-degree understanding of your audience. You'll then have highly actionable insight that you can use to de-risk decision-making, with return on investment visible across engagement and product or service uptake.

This integrated approach to user experience – whether digital or real-world – can help you to understand:

What is the user research process?

Discovery

All projects start with a discovery phase: the initial ‘deep-dive’ to uncover who your organisation’s users are and understand both current challenges and future aspirations. With a clear understanding of what needs to be achieved, user research can begin. If you are awash with research data, but have little insight, a 'synthesis' phase might be all that is required. However, if data and insight are light, a bit of work now will save a world of pain later.

User research

Our research team looks to understand and empathise with internal and external audiences using a product or service. By conducting stakeholder interviews and mapping existing behaviours, needs, and problem areas, we get an accurate picture of your users and their contexts.

We have a specialist participant recruitment team that helps access hard-to-reach users with varying access needs including digital, literacy, or numeracy confidence, different ages, ethnicities, and more.

User experience design and service design

This team unpicks the various stages of service to understand its interaction points with the intended audiences across every communication channel.

They then consider all of the touchpoints within the system from each of the multiple user perspectives – customers, citizens, or employees who support and service users – and help the organisation understand them and their individual needs and requirements.

From here, they can then start to visualise and design creative solutions and technology architectures in collaboration with you. A series of workshops typically result in strong alignment between what we've learnt, what you want to achieve and how we'll get there together.

User experience (UX) and user interface (UI)

The UX and UI design team uses the research findings to ensure the functionality of the build meets all user needs, as well as being aesthetically pleasing.

They work on projects of all sizes, whether large-scale structural change or pixel-perfect screen design and micro-interactions.

This approach truly helps transform the experience that users have with your products or services maximizing the value of their engagement.

Strategy planning and performance measurements

Our planning and performance team views and optimises the broader context of user engagement with a product or service.

They help organisations to optimise and track their digital engagement through an enhanced performance and analytics strategy – looking at performance and success, benchmarking against competitors, and identifying learnings to drive further positive change.

Skilled in identifying opportunities within the market ecosystem and understanding performance issues, they devise inclusive strategies, plans, and solutions to get the best outcome for end-users

Accessibility consulting

Our accessibility consultants work with internal teams to provide analysis and actionable steps to create completely accessible solutions. They are Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) compliant, ensuring that all projects produce a service that meets regulatory requirements.

Future-proofing

Research shouldn’t be a one-time project. Needs and requirements change as society and audiences change. We encourage continuous testing – little and often – to assess performance and facilitate ongoing improvement.

We encourage your teams to understand the needs of your organisation’s users and to adopt our research and insight methodology. We involve them in the process throughout the research phase so that they can go on to support continuous day-to-day research and analysis, while we become a consultative resource available to you as and when you need us

How can CDS help?

We offer market-leading, end-to-end research & insight services to organisations looking to transform their products or services.

Whether it’s a small piece of discovery work to understand a sub-section of your audience or a complete end-to-end service redesign, insight should sit at the heart of strategic decision-making.

We ensure that any transformational experience is relevant and valuable for the people who interact with you so you don't waste time, money, and energy implementing solutions that are not relevant and empathetic to your users.

Our integrated team of experts each play their part in ensuring your product or service hits the right note with your intended audiences—guaranteeing their experience is relevant and memorable for all the right reasons.

Tackling the early signs of radicalisation with Counter Terrorism Policing

Bringing 'Letters to my younger self' to life for a diverse audience resulted in a 28% increase in engagement and a 431% increase in page views.

NCTPHQ case study >

Accessible reports for Northern Ireland Audit Office

Converting print documents to meet accessibility regulations. Workshops improved efficiency by tackling usability issues in the early content-creation stages.

NIAO case study >

Creating a user-friendly website for Wakefield Council

Identifying pain points through user research to build a more accessible website.

Wakefield Council case study >

Improving EE customer experiences with user insights

User testing improved design and navigation, resulting in an uplift of £1.6 million.

EE case study >

Improving website accessibility for National Institute for Health Research

Uncovering potential usability and functionality issues by testing the L4I website with real users.

NIHR case study >

Optimising mobile ordering at McDonald's

Improving accuracy and speed in the ordering and collection process by understanding user needs.

McDonald's case study >

Who can afford for digital change to fail? Especially now

Ensuring change starts in the right way by delivering the right engagement through an understanding of user needs.

Who can afford for digital change to fail >

Using storyboards in UX design to enhance user experience

Explore the use of storyboarding in UX design to conceptualise, understand user needs, and map out user testing.

Using storyboards in UX design >

User research is key to Government Digital Service assessments

Providing a deeper understanding of Government Digital Service (GDS) assessments and the vital role of user research.

User research for Government Digital Service assessments >

Research and insight services

Creating human-centred solutions

"Without research and insight, you can’t truly understand the user experience in its current state or any unmet user needs, and therefore how it should be transformed."