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Baymard Institute

The world's leading ecommerce UX research organization, with 200,000+ hours of research used by 71% of Fortune 500 ecommerce companies.

Overview

Baymard Institute was founded in 2009 by Christian Holst and Jamie Appleseed in Denmark on the thesis that design decisions are often made subjectively or politically, and that a more evidence-based approach is possible. They've since become the world's foremost authority on ecommerce UX research.

Their research is staggering in scope: 200,000+ hours of research, 4,400+ qualitative moderated in-lab usability test sessions, in-lab eye-tracking testing, and quantitative studies with 18,397 users. Testing across 18 industries and hundreds of US and European sites revealed 34,000+ usability issues, distilled into over 700 Best Practice Guidelines.

Baymard's UX research is used by 29,000+ UX professionals and by 71% of all Fortune 500 ecommerce companies. They compare and rank top online stores based on UX performance across key areas, and offer tailored consulting services to help companies implement best practices. For ecommerce teams, Baymard's benchmarks and guidelines are considered the definitive resource.

Key Features

  • 700+ UX best practice guidelines
  • Ecommerce UX benchmarking
  • In-lab usability testing research
  • Eye-tracking studies
  • Tailored consulting
  • Industry-specific research
  • UX audit tools
  • Performance scoring

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • + 200,000+ hours of original UX research
  • + Used by 71% of Fortune 500 ecommerce companies
  • + 700+ evidence-based guidelines
  • + Unmatched depth in ecommerce UX specifically

Cons

  • Focused exclusively on ecommerce UX
  • Consulting services are premium-priced
  • Research database requires subscription

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