While 43% of consumers believe the majority of websites on the internet are not designed around the needs of the end-user, a full 95% of product teams say it’s “somewhat” or “very easy” for users to navigate their site, according to a new report by HEAP. Every brand is trying to build a digital experience that their customers love and will return to. So why do many online experiences leave users unsatisfied?

Why this gap? Why would so many digital experience builders believe their sites are easy to use, when users clearly don’t find them so? Further information suggests that the problem may lie in the fact that the teams who build experiences are simply not provided with the data that would let them understand how their users actually experience those experiences. For example, only 24% of product teams say they have full insight into the user journeys on their site. Even worse, only 16% of respondents say they know why most (>75%) customers drop off their site.

Without full visibility into the user journey, product teams aren’t seeing the actual moments of friction that ruin the end-user experience. No wonder they’re inclined to see their product as easy to use! When they’re not getting full and objective data on their site experiences, it’s too easy to remain biased, conveniently failing to locate — and remedy — the many moments of difficulty that users clearly face. With 89% of consumers saying that ease of use is a critical factor when choosing between two websites that accomplish similar goals, those teams that remain in the dark will lose to the companies that can quickly identify and remove the moments of friction in their products. The solution to overcoming this divide between product teams and end-users isn’t just a desire to make a great user experience — it’s having a dataset that can actually put teams in the shoes of their consumers.

A national online survey of 1,000 US employed consumers and 200 full time product managers/team members, ages 18+ was conducted by Heap in partnership with Propeller Insights between June 1-3, 2021. Respondents opted into an online database, from there, they were targeted based on demographics. To further confirm qualifications, respondents were asked to verify their information in the survey itself, self-identifying qualifications, with the maximum margin of sampling error was +/- 3 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence.

Read the full report by Heap.