UX Metrics: Deriving Country-Specific Usage Patterns of a Website Plug-In from Web Analytics

Abstract

Metrics for User Experience (UX) often involve traditional usability aspects, such as task success, but also mental aspects, such as interpretation and meaning. The actual experience of a user also highly depends on personal characteristics, such as the social and cultural background. In this paper, we investigate the relation between users' country of origin and their interaction patterns with an e-commerce website plug-in. We used a quantitative web analytics approach based on six UX-related metrics to evaluate the applicability of a quantitative UX evaluation approach in an international context. In a 34 day study we analyzed the usage patterns of 5.843 French, 2.760 German, and 5.548 Italian website visitors and found that they show significantly different patterns. This indicates that website metrics are a suitable means for cost-effective UX analysis on a large scale, which can provide valuable starting points for a further in-depth analysis.