Support ticket analysis for insight gathering

Support tickets contain gold mines of user experience insights that often go untapped during design audits. These real-world problem reports reveal exactly where users struggle enough to seek help.

Start by collecting 3-6 months of support data to identify meaningful patterns rather than isolated incidents. Look beyond the surface-level categorization and dig into the actual language that users employ when describing their problems.

Key areas to analyze:

• Frequency: Which design elements generate the most support requests?
• Severity: Which issues cause the most significant user frustration?
• Resolution time: Which design-related problems take the longest to solve?
• Recurrence: Which issues keep happening despite attempted fixes?
• User segments: Do certain user types experience specific problems more often?

When reviewing tickets, pay particular attention to screenshots, screen recordings, or step-by-step descriptions that show precisely where users get stuck. These detailed cases provide context that quantitative data alone cannot.

Collaborate with support teams who interact directly with users. They've developed intuition about common pain points and can often predict which design elements will cause problems.