When it comes to user experience design, just as much time is spent planning your digital project as it is designing it. The attention to detail, focus on usability, and time spent on personas are the main facets that set UX design apart from average web design.

If you’re embarking on a UX project with a UI/UX design team, whether that project is a new website or custom software application, take some time to outline your goals, your red routes, and most importantly, the UX metrics you’d like to measure.

Without measurement, how will you ever determine that your project has been a success?

This is the most important UX metric you can measure. What do you want users to do when they get to your site? Fill out a form? Sign up for a newsletter? Order a product? Request a quote? The decisions you make now will influence how your website or application is built.

The number of visitors is a must-have UX metric for your conversion rate. However, remember that not every visitor is going to convert. Break down your visitors by demographic or type so you can get a better idea of who is visiting your site or interacting with your product.

Do you want users to visit your site for one major purchase? Or do you want them to come back time and time again? If you want users to return, how will you get them to do so? What features or engagements will you offer?

If your application is one that automates tasks like sales orders or inventory, you want the task to take a shorter amount of time. What features can you build to streamline this process? If you’re developing a website that focuses on news stories or training, you want a longer task time. What can you do to keep users engaged?

What is your bounce rate? Are users giving up halfway through a task? You want to ensure that they’re completing the goals you establish. Sometimes preventing abandonment means adding features like progress bars or users tips to help them move forward.

If you’re developing a custom application, productivity should soar. It’s time to define what productivity means to your team. Then, determine what features you’ll implement to help measure productivity and push it along.

Your ultimate goal is for users to have seamless, simple interactions with your website or application. Make sure your application has a way for users to contact support, whether that be via a form, email, or chatbot. More submissions mean that usability updates may need to be made to your application.

Don’t forget about customer satisfaction! This is a UX metric that you can’t measure until after your site or application launches, but it’s best to plan early. Put a survey together for users. Don’t only ask them whether they’re satisfied. Ask them additional questions about appearance, usability, and credibility.

Remember that your site or application should be constantly evolving. The worst user experience you can offer is one that hasn’t kept up with changing expectations. You can never predict these changes, but careful and considerate UX design helps you build a flexible product that can change with the needs of your users, the goals of your business, and the trends in technology.