David Sward provided a good description of the major facets of user experience http://ux-design.ning.com/profiles/blogs/what-do-we-mean-by-user (note: this external link is no longer functional). The user experience includes Marketing & Awareness, Acquire & Install, Products or Services Use, Product Support, and Removal or End of Life.
Like anything else, ensuring you are measuring the right things is key to successfully delivering an experience. I propose using an Experience Design Scorecard as a comprehensive way to ensure a high quality delivery. Building on the balanced scorecard idea, an Experience Design Scorecard focuses on four areas; customer satisfaction and loyalty, financial success, process success, and employee development.
The first component in a scorecard is intended to get an overall sense of satisfaction with the delivered experience. A common measurement used today is NetPromoter. This provides a simple score that indicates if people will recommend you to someone else. If they like what you are delivering, they are likely to promote you to others. This provides a good overall sense of success.
However, it is also important to measure and improve the processes that lead to delivering a great experience. In my last post, I provided some ideas about the process needed to deliver a great experience. You can imagine measuring key aspects of the XD process, such ensuring user & customer research, prototyping, usability testing, and cross-functional collaboration.
A financial measurement is needed to ensure that the business succeeds. There are many ways to look at this measure. One or more metrics appropriate for the business goals should be selected.
The last part of the scorecard is to measure employee development. To maintain success, people need to continuously improve their skills in design, collaboration, improvisation, and technology.
The four areas described here combine into one score that provides actionable data that helps ensure a great experience is delivered.
What types of metrics are used at your company? Do you have innovative ideas for measurements you would like to try? Keep the conversation going by leaving a comment.
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