12 Useful statistics to know that highlight hidden user habits

Common users behaviours from industry wide research

As a researcher, external insights can be one of my most powerful tools as they can save time and resource. Thankfully, there are many user behaviours that have formed from them engaging with products in the digital world over the last few decades; and the further into the digi-verse we go, the more we understand how they behave. Some habits are new, and some have been ingrained in us since the beginning. Regardless of this, they offer insights into what teams should always remember when building their products. From how long we have to hook the user, to how long they are willing to wait for a page to load; this article covers of some key stats to remember when building the experience. Who knows if these stats will still be relevant in 5 or 10 years time but for now, happy reading!

80–20

This was one of the first stats that stuck with me and inspired the article. The 80–20 rule commonly known as the Pareto Principle suggests that roughly 80% off your products usage will come from 20% of its features [1]. This is such an important statistic to remember. Your users are fundamentally there to achieve a specific goal. You should have the data and research to understand what that is and build the best experience for that. There will inevitably be edge cases and different user stories or scenarios that need to be addressed, but ensure the golden path is optimised and at its best before exploring and focusing on other elements.

When teams are getting sidetracked by side tasks or less relevant missions, remind them of the 80–20 rule and what the user is primarily trying to do and what you are primarily trying to help them achieve

28%

This is, as mentioned in Steve Krugs ‘Don’t make me think’[2], the amount of information that users (have time to) read on a page. This sort of behaviour results in users scanning pages for key information or details to see if it fulfills what they are looking for.