Brand Analysis

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A brand’s homepage shapes how users perceive the company and whether they feel a connection with it. For product designers and managers, the challenge is aligning the brand’s online presence with user expectations while highlighting credibility and value.

Brand Analysis Testing uses a design stack of UX metrics: sentiment, engagement, brand score, and loyalty to measure how effectively the brand resonates with its audience. This approach replaces subjective opinions with measurable insights.

With these findings, designers and managers can make informed design decisions, prioritize improvements, and demonstrate the impact of changes on business outcomes. For example, testing Slack’s website homepage revealed strong engagement but weaker sentiment, showing that while users explored the content, the brand impression needed refinement to strengthen trust and appeal.

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Define Goals for Your Brand Analysis Test

A brand analysis should balance user needs like credibility, value, and emotional connection with business goals such as differentiation, loyalty, and market growth. Measuring both perception and business impact ensures brand analysis is actionable and future-focused.

Audience

To define user needs, you first need to establish who your audience is. In the case of our Slack example, we targeted HR and operations managers who might be interested in setting up the platform for their team.

User Needs

As a customer forming perceptions of a brand, the five most important needs would be:

1. The brand should feel clear, believable, and rooted in truth. (Brand should feel Credible)

2. The brand should represent something people genuinely want to associate with or choose. (Brand should feel Desirable)

3. The brand should feel worth the time, cost, or emotional investment. (Brand should feel Valuable)

4. The brand should provide clarity, guidance, and a deeper understanding of its purpose or mission. (Brand should be Insightful)

5. The brand should foster meaningful bonds with its customers and community. (Brand should feel Connected)

These five ensure a brand feels trustworthy, relevant, and resonant, meeting core expectations for building long-term affinity.

Business Goals

Here are the five most important business goals for brand analysis:

1. Differentiate in the Market – Understand how the brand stands apart from competitors and strengthen unique positioning.

2. Build Customer Loyalty – Ensure the brand experience keeps customers returning and advocating.

3. Drive Brand Awareness – Expand recognition and familiarity in target markets

4. Improve Customer Sentiment – Address pain points or misperceptions to create more positive associations.

5. Support Growth Strategies – Use insights from brand analysis to guide messaging, campaigns, and product decisions.

These goals help the business strengthen positioning, grow recognition, and build lasting loyalty through ongoing brand analysis.

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Choose Metrics to Test Your Brand

For Slack’s brand analysis, a design stack of four UX metrics was chosen to measure how well the company’s homepage reinforces its brand in the eyes of prospective customers. This stack — Sentiment, Engagement, Brand Score, and Loyalty — was established by mapping user needs directly to measurable outcomes:

• Credible & Insightful → Sentiment

  Visitors should feel confident in the brand and gain clarity about its purpose. Sentiment measures the emotional impressions left by the homepage, such as whether the brand feels trustworthy or confusing.

• Desirable → Engagement

  A strong brand should attract attention and motivate interaction. Engagement evaluates whether visitors are drawn to click into CTAs, navigation links, or featured content.

• Valuable → Brand Score

  The brand needs to resonate in the market and feel relevant to users’ needs. Brand Score reflects overall brand recognition, perception, and differentiation.

• Connected → Loyalty

  Visitors should feel a sense of alignment with the brand and be motivated to share or recommend it. Loyalty captures whether users would advocate for or return to the brand after their first impression.

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Establish Hunches to Direct Your Testing

Brand analysis testing helps uncover whether a brand’s website communicates credibility, resonates with its audience, and motivates loyalty. By starting with hunches about potential weak spots or missed opportunities, we can frame questions to test how users actually perceive the brand.

Example: Slack Homepage

<table xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="min-width: 75px;"><colgroup><col style="min-width: 25px;"><col style="min-width: 25px;"><col style="min-width: 25px;"></colgroup><tbody><tr><th colspan="1" rowspan="1"><p>Hunch</p></th><th colspan="1" rowspan="1"><p>Question</p></th><th colspan="1" rowspan="1"><p>UX Metric</p></th></tr><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><p>Slack’s market differentiation isn’t clear enough—users may see it as just another chat tool rather than a platform for productivity and collaboration.</p></td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><p>“Based on what you see here, how would you describe what Slack does in one sentence?”</p></td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://glare.helio.app/define/ux-metrics/attitudinal-metrics/brand-score">Brand Score</a></p></td></tr><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><p>Users may feel overwhelmed by claims and stats (85%, 86%, 88%) without clear explanation of how Slack achieves these results, reducing credibility.</p></td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><p>“Do the statistics on this page make Slack feel more or less trustworthy to you? Why?”</p></td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://glare.helio.app/define/ux-metrics/attitudinal-metrics/sentiment">Sentiment</a></p></td></tr><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><p>The “Talk to Sales” CTA is emphasized, but it may not connect with smaller teams or individual users, which could weaken brand relatability.</p></td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><p>“Would you be motivated to click ‘Talk to Sales’ after seeing this page? If not, what would you prefer instead?”</p></td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://glare.helio.app/define/ux-metrics/attitudinal-metrics/brand-score">Brand Score</a></p></td></tr><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><p>The homepage leans heavily on features and customer logos but doesn’t fully showcase brand personality or human connection, which may limit emotional appeal.</p></td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><p>“What kind of impression do you get of Slack as a company after viewing this page?”</p></td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://glare.helio.app/define/ux-metrics/attitudinal-metrics/brand-score">Brand Score</a></p></td></tr><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><p>While Slack is widely known, loyalty may not be strong enough to drive advocacy if the value proposition feels generic.</p></td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><p>“Would you recommend Slack to a colleague based only on this page? Why or why not?”</p></td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://glare.helio.app/define/ux-metrics/attitudinal-metrics/loyalty">Loyalty</a></p></td></tr></tbody></table>

These hunches aim to validate whether Slack’s brand feels credible, desirable, valuable, insightful, and connected—all of which drive market recognition and loyalty.

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Turn Hunches into Test Questions

Turning these metrics into participant questions transforms design assumptions into measurable signals. Each metric uses a specific question type paired with a clear example from Slack’s homepage and brand:

• Brand Score **(Market recognition & brand impressions)**

  Question type: Recognition and association.

  Examples:

1. “Before this test, had you heard of Slack?” (Yes / No)

2. “Which words best describe your impression of Slack as a brand?” (e.g., Collaborative, Confusing, Trustworthy, Overwhelming)

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• Engagement **(First-click test)**
Question type: Click test.

  Example: “Where would you click first if you wanted to learn more about how Slack works?”

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• Sentiment **(Multiple-choice impressions)**

  Question type: Impression checklist.

  Example: “Which of the following words best describe your impression of Slack’s homepage?”
 (Positive: Clear, Professional, Modern, Trustworthy. Negative: Confusing, Overwhelming, Dull, Distracting)

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• Loyalty **(Likelihood to promote)**
Question type: 10-point likelihood scale.

  Example: “How likely are you to recommend Slack to a colleague or friend?” (0 = Not at all likely, 10 = Extremely likely)

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Calculate UX Metric Scores from User Feedback

We tested Slack’s brand and homepage with 100 HR and operations participants, and their responses were transformed into UX metric scores on a 0–100% scale. Each metric in the design stack was calculated using survey questions and first-click data, then rated against the following benchmarks:

• Very Good = 90% and above

• Good = 70% to 89%

• Average = 50% to 69%

• Poor = 30% to 49%

• Very Poor = below 30%

Once the individual UX metric scores are calculated, the average of those scores are used to determine the overall score for the user experience.

Slack’s brand score:

• Brand Score (66% — Average): Familiarity with Slack’s brand is moderate, suggesting room for improvement in reaching and resonating with a wider audience.

• Engagement (68% — Average): Users showed only moderate interest in exploring Slack’s homepage, with weaker first-click activity on important CTAs.

• Sentiment (61% — Average): Impressions of Slack’s brand and homepage were mixed, highlighting both interest and confusion about its positioning.

• Loyalty (51% — Average): Willingness to recommend Slack to others sits at the low end of average, indicating that stronger credibility and trust-building are needed.

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Together, these results produced an overall test score of 62% — Average. Slack’s brand and homepage are meeting baseline expectations but falling short of building strong loyalty and resonance. Targeted improvements in clarity, trust-building, and CTA engagement could elevate performance into the Good range and strengthen long-term brand perception.

Click here to check out the raw survey data and UX metric scores for Slack's brand analysis.

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Draw Signals from Your Design Stack

Here’s how signals were surfaced from Slack’s homepage brand analysis by following these five steps:

1. Focus on poorly scoring metrics

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   The Brand Analysis produced average scores across all metrics: BRAND SCORE (66%), ENGAGEMENT (68%), SENTIMENT (61%), and LOYALTY (51%). The weakest signal is in Loyalty, with only 51% of users indicating they would recommend Slack, signaling that while the brand has awareness, advocacy remains fragile.

2. Identify patterns across metrics

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   The data suggests that while Slack’s homepage presentation improves perceptions compared to initial impressions, conversion-oriented engagement lags. The near-total lack of interaction with the “Talk to Sales” CTA (1% of clicks) shows a disconnect between how Slack positions its brand promise and how users act on it. This pattern highlights a gap between sentiment uplift and tangible engagement.

3. Determine if user needs are being met

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   • Credible: Partially met. The site improves perceptions but lingering confusion about Slack’s purpose reduces believability.

   • Desirable: Met. The polished homepage presentation helps make the brand more appealing.

   • Valuable: Partially met. Average loyalty and low CTA interaction suggest the brand feels relevant but not compelling enough to drive action.

   • Insightful: Not fully met. Users gain some clarity after seeing the site, but messaging still fails to clearly communicate Slack’s deeper value.

   • Connected: Not met. Low advocacy and minimal CTA engagement show limited resonance with customers or community.

4. Compare outcomes to your business goals

   • Differentiate in the Market: At risk — persistent confusion blurs Slack’s positioning compared to competitors.

   • Build Customer Loyalty: Weak — loyalty is barely average, with limited promotion or advocacy.

   • Drive Brand Awareness: Supported — homepage exposure reduced confusion and lifted impressions.

   • Improve Customer Sentiment: Mixed — sentiment improved but remains only average.

   • Support Growth Strategies: Limited — weak engagement with CTAs constrains brand analysis’ ability to inform demand generation.

5. Surface signals & establish a direction

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   Signals derived from the data:**

   • Slack’s brand improves with exposure but starts unclear — confusion about Slack’s purpose drops from 20% to 10% after viewing the homepage.

   • Brand loyalty is underdeveloped — only half of users would recommend Slack, pointing to weak advocacy.

   • Critical CTAs fail to attract attention — only 1% engaged with the homepage “Talk to Sales” button.

Direction based on business context:

To support Slack’s goals of differentiating in the market, building loyalty, and supporting growth, design priorities should focus on:

• Sharpening homepage messaging to immediately communicate Slack’s unique value proposition.

• Reconsidering CTA design, placement, and labeling to improve engagement with key business actions.

• Building stronger emotional connection through user-centered stories or testimonials to convert positive impressions into advocacy.

Based on the signals and design direction, we created an updated version of the design with the expected UX metric improvement:

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The direction is clear: Slack's brand gains credibility when seen but fails to inspire loyalty or action. Improving clarity of purpose and elevating key CTAs are essential for driving both advocacy and growth.

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