I've been having meetings about user onboarding for the past week as part of research for boardme.
And, this is a pattern that frequently pops up.
When we're discussing users and usage stats to establish a baseline to improve upon, the numbers are off.
Here's a few things that I've learned:
- Tracking vanity metrics is way more popular than I thought e.g. Pageviews, Visitors, Followers, Signups.
- Number of database users has no corellation with the usage of the product.
- Very few products have clear KPIs in place to track a users success with the product.
- We tend to care more about the product than our users. The product loads fast, it does this, that, and the other thing.
Here's what we could improve:
- Pay attention to active users. Why do they use the product and how they use it. Users should be using the product by definition, otherwise they are just credentials you're storing somewhere.
- Have clear KPIs in place for user success. This varies from product to product, but you should know if a user found the value that they were looking for.
- Understand user flow within the product. How did they get to the value they came for? Could they have found it faster or more conveniently?
- Keep an eye on the numbers that matter, so that you can improve the metrics that have the highest ROI.
That's a few insights I've found so far. I hope you'll find them helpful!