Understanding your users is at the heart of any successful digital experience. But true understanding takes more than just surface-level metrics. It requires a balance of quantitative and qualitative insight – one showing what users do, the other revealing why they do it. When used together, they drive smarter decisions and stronger digital outcomes.
How to Use Data Insights to Improve Website UX and Design
Quantitative data is numerical, measurable, and typically produced at scale. It includes:
- Page views and bounce rates
- Conversion funnels and drop-off points
- Heatmaps and click-through rates
- Top internal search terms
- Charts, tables, and statistical reports
This data is often used to validate decisions, identify patterns, and provide hard evidence for performance.
Qualitative data focuses on the why behind user behaviour. It includes:
- Session recordings and usability tests
- User feedback and testimonials
- Open-text survey responses
- Observations from workshops and interviews
This type of data offers valuable context, helping to uncover friction points, emotional responses, and user expectations that numbers alone can’t explain.
Why Both Are Essential
Quantitative data provides scale and precision. Qualitative data provides depth and context. Relying on one without the other risks missing critical insights.
For example, analytics may reveal that users are abandoning a key journey — but only qualitative feedback can explain whether the cause is confusing language, unclear CTAs, or navigation issues. On the other hand, qualitative feedback alone can be anecdotal or unrepresentative if not validated with broader metrics.
The most effective digital strategies use both types of data in tandem – measuring what’s happening, and understanding why.
Using Data Insights to Improve Website Experience
Here are four practical ways to combine quantitative and qualitative data to improve website UX, optimise user journeys, and boost engagement.
User Testing
Session recordings and observational research (qualitative) might reveal users skipping a key button or misreading form instructions. These insights can shape improved event tracking and conversion funnel analysis (quantitative), allowing you to monitor changes effectively
Navigation Improvements
Quantitative data can reveal weak spots in site navigation – such as high drop-off rates from a key landing page. This can prompt qualitative research like card sorting or tree testing to uncover how users interpret the structure.
Reporting with Context
Quarterly or monthly reporting should always combine data trends with narrative analysis. For example, an annual event might cause a traffic spike – but only contextual insights can explain the anomaly.
A/B and Multivariate Testing
Don’t guess – test. UX updates like changing CTA text, design, or placement should be validated using A/B or multivariate testing. This ensures changes are backed by statistically significant results.
Collaboration Is Critical
Combining data with expert input from across the organisation is key. While external analysts and UX consultants provide data-led insights, internal teams bring essential knowledge about member expectations, sector needs, and organisational goals.
This collaborative approach ensures that data-led design decisions are aligned with real-world priorities and challenges – not just what the numbers show in isolation.
Real-World Results
We’ve seen the value of combining quantitative and qualitative insight across a range of client projects. For NHS Providers, we reviewed their analytics setup and cookie banner, delivered training across multiple teams, and introduced custom tracking and automated dashboards – freeing up time for teams to focus on insight rather than manual reporting.
The Association of Anaesthetists (AoA) partnered with us on a major Information Architecture project, where we combined hard data from reporting with user testing and workshops to simplify navigation and align content more closely with member needs. The results speak for themselves: a 178% increase in pageviews, an 83% rise in new users, and a 52% increase in sessions.
Meanwhile, the Academy of Medical Sciences (AMS) has benefitted from our Continuous Improvement programme, which provides ongoing reporting and UX support. Through bespoke quarterly reports and biannual UX reviews, we’ve helped them achieve a 41.5% increase in active users and a 33.3% rise in engaged sessions per active user between Q1 2024/25 and Q1 2025/26 – clear evidence of how sustained, data-led collaboration translates into measurable results.
Conclusion
The most effective digital experiences are shaped by a balanced combination of quantitative and qualitative data. Using both together enables organisations to:
- Identify user pain points
- Prioritise enhancements
- Validate design decisions
- Continuously improve performance
For membership organisations and associations, where digital platforms must support complex user needs, the integration of these two data types is vital. Designing with insight, not just instinct, will always lead to better results for users and better outcomes for the organisation.
Cantarus is a multi-award-winning full-service digital agency specialising in delivering websites & with deep expertise and an outstanding client portfolio in the membership sector.
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