What is it? Based on the idea that all improvements should be measurable, a benchmark is an initial baseline assessment or measurement, taken before improvement initiatives begin. The initial measurement is used to track progress over time. 

When is it best used? When looking to evaluate and check something by comparison with a standard, often the current status of a product, service, website, design etc. or even a sentiment such as satisfaction, retention, against a potential improvement.

What does it entail? Establishing a baseline of data to measure the impact of initiatives, activities, designed to achieve improvement. Testing is almost always through quantitative methods, that can be tracked over time. 

The goal is to generate a “baseline” measurement or “before” measurement to compare with an “after” measurement taken after changes or improvements have been implemented.

Interchangeable term: benchmarking 

Use in a sentence: To understand if our redesign is effective, we will collect monthly data on “time spent browsing in our app” to benchmark our progress over time.

Related terms: Measure, point of reference

Visual: No

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