Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

What it is

Google Analytics 4 is the standard web analytics tool: a place to collect events from a site or app, then read them as funnels, acquisition reports and audiences. It answers “what happened at scale”, which makes it the instrument behind most of the numbers in quantitative UX research.

Why it matters

Without a shared analytics tool, every question about how the product is actually used turns into a data request. With one, a designer can check a drop-off before a meeting and a funnel can be watched for a week after a release. It is also the point where design decisions and privacy obligations meet: GA4 collects personal data, so the consent boundary is part of the design work and not an afterthought.

In this track

1. Events and conversions (03-design-ux/06-google-analytics-4-ga4/01-events-and-conversions) — the event model, parameters, and which events you mark as conversions.
2. Funnels and acquisition reports (03-design-ux/06-google-analytics-4-ga4/02-funnels-and-acquisition-reports) — reading the journey people took to arrive, and where they stopped.

Prerequisites

None.

Go deeper

• Quantitative UX Research (03-design-ux/24-quantitative-ux-research) — what to measure and how to avoid fooling yourself with the numbers.
• Hotjar (03-design-ux/25-hotjar) — recordings and heatmaps to see the behaviour behind the funnel.
• A/B Testing (03-design-ux/39-ab-testing) — comparing variants using the same event stream.
• GDPR and Data Privacy (07-security/05-gdpr-data-privacy) — the consent and retention rules this tool has to operate inside.