What is WP Statistics?
WP Statistics is a popular, privacy-friendly SaaS web analytics plugin with over 600,000 active installations. It provides users with actionable analytics reports directly within their WordPress dashboard.
Tools
Figma
FigJam
Zoom
Loom
Team
1 Product manager
2 Developers
2 Product designers
Roles
User Research, UX Design, Visual Design
Problem
User messages and tickets revealed a range of issues, from usability challenges to missing critical functionalities. Upon investigating user behavior through Hotjar's heatmaps, we identified a disappointingly low click-through rate on the charts and report tables, suggesting a critical disconnect between its intended purpose and actual user interaction.
Solution
To address these pain points, we embarked on an in-depth research project to thoroughly understand our users' needs and develop targeted solutions. We focused on user-requested features such as automated traffic reports, customizable monitoring preferences, advanced filtering options, and many other enhancements.
Outcome
Through a series of data-driven design changes, we successfully increased user interaction with the chart by 43%, improved user satisfaction, and longer feature engagement, as evidenced by user recordings and heatmaps.
Process Overview
01
Engage & Empathyze
02
Conceptualization
03
Visual Design
04
Usability Testing
05
Results and Metrics
06
Challenges and Lessons Learned
01/05
Engage & Empathyze
Competitive Audit
I analysed the most potential competitors for WP Statistics, in order to have a better overview and more understand the Strengths, Weaknesses & Similarities between web analytics plugins in the industry.
User Interview
To better uncover users behaviors, motivations, and expectations, which will enable us to create a user-centric and feature-rich plugin, I conducted 4 interviews with our current users. I wanted to gain insight into questions such as:
Structure
Interview Criteria
Research Insights
Interview Details
I organized all the information we collected and made sense of it by coding all the answers, and extracted the problems from them; drew out the insights from the problems.
Findings
Takeaways
01
Users need quicker access to real-time user stats.
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Integrate a persistent real-time users widget or offer a customizable dashboard.
02
Users need consistent and automated traffic reports to enhance decision-making processes.
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Implement a feature for scheduled, automated traffic report generation and delivery.
03
Users need the flexibility to tailor their monitoring settings to focus on specific metrics relevant to their needs.
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Provide advanced settings, such as enabling users to access advanced report and notification options.
04
Users prioritize a bundled option for add-ons to save costs while also valuing the ability to purchase individual add-ons as needed.
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Offer a bundled pricing option for add-ons to save costs, with the flexibility to purchase individual add-ons.
05
Users need to track and analyze specific downloads from their website to understand user preferences effectively.
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Implement author, post type, and page filters to enable users to analyze the downloads of specific items.
06
Users need a visual tool to easily grasp the publishing frequency, helping them identify patterns and gaps.
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Visualize publishing frequency as a heat map, enabling users to quickly spot trends, peak times, and gaps in their content schedule.
07
Users require clear metrics to evaluate author performance and contributions.
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Visualize a table displaying each author's content, views, and word count to provide a comprehensive overview of their productivity.
08
Users need actionable insights and clear indications of compliance to ensure their plugins meet privacy standards.
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Offer actionable insights for process adjustments and clear compliance indicators on the "Privacy Audit" page.
Persona
Meet Alex.
Referencing the key insights gained from user interviews, I crafted a fictional persona that represents potential users who use web analytics plugins. This would provide a relatable personification of my interviewee's motivations, behaviors and pain points.
02/05
Conceptualization
Low fidelity sketches
The next step was to create quick digital wireframes of the key touch points and make sure we're going in the right direction. It was great to see how the users' needs give shape to the actual interface.
03/05
Visual Design
User interface visual direction
We were given a green light to explore bold interface ideas and start the conversation about the product capabilities both internally (PM, Eng, stakeholders) and externally. This is an early design direction, shared with users that provided valuable feedback for the next set of iterations.
Overview
Real-Time
Download Tracker
Setting
Website Traffic Overview
Author Analytics
Privacy Audit
Category Analytics
04/05
Usability Testing
Goal: Identify key pain points and target areas for future improvement.
For our usability testing, our goal was to pinpoint key issues and areas for enhancement. We provided five users from our target audience with a series of tasks to complete and requested that they use Loom to record their sessions, including both their screen activity and facial expressions.
Task Lists
Design Revision
Updated High-Fidelity Mockups
Based on user testing, I organized my usability problems by order of importance, plotted the necessary changes on a design prioritization matrix, then made a series of revisions. Here is two of the changes we applied:
Add date filter to the footer
Many users wanted the ability to check specific components on specific dates. To address this, we added a date filter to the footer of each analytics component. This enhancement improves user experience by allowing focused, immediate, and contextual data analysis.
Comparative statistics
Users receive a weekly traffic report but found it difficult to compare data over time. In response, we integrated comparative statistics directly into the summary component. This solution enables users to efficiently track changes, evaluate performance, and take prompt actions.
Results and Metrics
After 30 days, the results were promising:
Increased User Interaction: User engagement with the chart surged significantly, leaping from 20% to 28.6%. This represents an impressive 43% increase in interaction.

Enhanced Discovery of Features: The click-through rate for the advanced charts and reports experienced a substantial boost, rising from 7% to 11%. That’s a 57% increase in user exploration.
Beyond the quantitative data, our observations revealed positive qualitative trends:
Improved User Satisfaction: Feedback surveys indicated an overall rise in user satisfaction. Clarity, usability, and information provision within the chart received commendation.

Deeper User Engagement: User recordings and heatmaps unveiled a fascinating trend—users now spend more time actively exploring the charts and tables features and functionalities.
Challenges and Lessons Learned