The Web requires a unique approach to evaluating customer experience
. Gaining this insight requires leveraging the most critical elements of traditional market research and usability methods while combining both behavior and attitudes. Making compromises on audience size or the data collected is counterintuitive to the Web.
User-centric insights are the precise points necessary for identifying ease of use, increasing engagement, and designing sites that people will really use. It is important to be able to understand and measure how a wide spectrum of users navigate and make choices when using the Web.
Some of the most commonly used research methodologies include behavior tracking and log files; focus groups; usability studies; consultant reviews; online surveys; and robotic agents. The most insightful approach combines the advantages of multiple research methods while still providing excellent predictive insights into Web site effectiveness. The cumulative results from user testing are critical for designing effective Web sites that engage users and turn them into repeat customers.
Behavior-tracking tools (e.g., Web server logs) may reveal what users did on a site, but not why they did it. Analysis of log file data alone does not reveal whether a user has abandoned a full shopping cart because he changed his mind after seeing the shipping prices, or whether he did not feel comfortable giving his credit card number over the Internet. Without knowing a user's goals, it is impossible to interpret whether or not he or she is successfully achieving them.
With web performance on one side and customer experience on the other, it is a challenge to strike the right note and balance out both of these since it is equally important to have an efficient website with a good focus on end user experience.