User Experience (UX) can determine a product’s outcome to a large extent. As it happens, a good digital User Experience (UX) can improve conversion rates by up to 400%. Contrariwise, poor performance metrics, such as slow page load time, can lead to high bounce rates. As a matter of fact, Product Development doesn't end after the product launch! IT professionals must constantly evaluate performance for addressing potential issues through data-driven decision-making. But how can End User Experience Monitoring (EUEM) tool help to measure product performance? Let’s dive in to understand what the EUEM process is and its tools!
What is End User Experience Monitoring (EUEM)?
End User Experience Monitoring is the process of measuring the impact of a product or service from the perspective of end users. The metrics involved in the product's overall performance include real-time analytics like bounce rates, network performance monitoring, and anomaly detection.
These metrics have a crucial role in showing how easy it is for users to access an app and smoothly interact with it. They're strongly related to the effective use of the system's resources, data transmission, and responsiveness.
End User Experience Monitoring Methods
Synthetic Monitoring
Synthetic Monitoring tests actions like accessing content, adding items to a cart, searching for a product, downloading a file, and completing a form. You can think of it as a bot that performs automated clicks throughout the user's journey in a certain application to ensure all the features work properly. Synthetic Monitoring tools are especially useful in finding performance issues in multiple devices and gaining insights into user interactions when targeting a new geographic location.
Real User Monitoring (RUM)
RUM reports issues with real-time monitoring. Instead of using automated actions, RUM works as a virtual viewer that watches real user interaction with the product. It involves several aspects, such as how long the app takes to perform tasks like clicking a button to submit a form or loading a page users want to access. Additionally, RUM measures active users at a given time, helping developers understand average and peak times for traffic.
RUM also considers Core Web Vitals (CWVs), such as Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). Keep in mind that apart from being key to providing a great UX, CWVs are considered to be very important for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Application Performance Monitoring (APM)
APM focuses on ensuring availability and optimal performance by reviewing performance issues. APM solutions can monitor code during development to help ensure proper execution. It also helps developers with infrastructure planning, having a major impact on scalability. APM can be particularly useful for complex products that involve a lot of functionalities, like Fintech products.
Device Performance Monitoring (DPM)
DPM aims to minimize IT security risks by tracking performance in a wide range of end-user devices. It collects data from on-premise servers, mobile devices, and desktops. DPM can also get data from other network-interconnected devices, such as security systems, smart devices, IP cameras, sensors, and routers. That makes it useful in industries like manufacturing, robotics, and autonomous vehicles. This method provides development teams with meaningful insights into the device's health, such as CPU usage, battery life, disk space, connected networks, and operating system's performance.
Top 4 End User Experience Monitoring Tools
1. Cisco AppDynamics
With around 20 years of experience in the sector, Cisco is by far one of the most popular and powerful tools for EUEM. This tool uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to gain AI-powered insights on metrics like response time, request rates, garbage collection, and CPU usage.
Moreover, it analyzes Apdex scores to understand, measure, and help improve user satisfaction and Customer Experience (CX). Cisco provides all-around visibility from the end users' viewpoint and covers mobile, web browsers, and even IoT applications. Its state-of-the-art solutions involve EUEM methods like RUM, APM, and Synthetic Monitoring.
2. Dynatrace
Dynatrace offers advanced features on AI observability, cloud monitoring, security, automation, and business analytics. One of its most popular tools, Davis AI, combines Predictive, Casual, and Generative AI, to provide automatic root-cause analysis, dashboard generation, and DevOps integrations. On top of that, it has a tool called Davis Copilot, which can create workflows and run forecasts based on queries. You can ask it questions with queries in plain English as with other common Generative AI tools.
3. Pingdom
Founded in Sweden nearly two decades ago, Pingdom offers a vast pool of solutions that cover Synthetic Monitoring, RUM, and APM. Its products are excellent for popular use cases, such as Web Development, Marketing, and ecommerce.
Also, it allows you to run speed tests with uptime monitoring, covering over 100 locations worldwide. Pingdom has stellar solutions to monitor transactions and send automatic alerts based on predefined conditions. It also allows for comprehensive observability, which thoroughly covers digital experiences. One of its golden tools, SolarWinds, provides reports with in-depth analysis of error rates with actionable insights for cloud platforms.
4. Splunk
Recently acquired by Cisco, Splunk shines at data aggregation. It can collect and process data from an ocean of sources at a massive scale. Its sources include servers, third-party tools, network devices, firewalls, load balancers, cloud services, and data centers. Splunk’s solutions have a strong focus on security and observability, while also harnessing AI to offer automated workflows and improve productivity. On top of that, it has a stunning Graphical User Interface (GUI) that shows key metrics in real time, providing valuable insights on advanced threat detection and performance degradation in business processes.
Conclusion
These end-user monitoring tools are just the tip of the iceberg; there are many more! As it happens, some companies like IBM and Hubspot have developed their digital experience monitoring tools, Content Hub and IBM Instana, respectively.
Remember that the one for you will depend on your specific business outcomes. Consider factors such as ease of use, use cases, integrated solutions, customizable dashboards, and instant alerts. Plus, ensure you check for real-time visibility, intuitive dashboards, and error-tracking options. Features that help security monitoring and compliance are also key elements. If you find it hard to decide which tool suits you better to track your User Experience metrics, we’ll be pleased to give you our input.
