subject: Data Must Be Non-invasive And Be Incorporated Into The Users Experience At The Site [print this page] User attitude is continually shaped throughout their interaction with a Web site. You want to collect as much attitude data as you can for various reasons, including: providing interpretation of ambiguous behavior, such as long dwell time that can indicate interest or confusion; monitoring general attitude trends over time that result from marketing efforts and repeated exposure to the site; gathering user feedback and suggestions that can trigger direct action or further research.
The method used to collect attitude data must be non-invasive and be incorporated into the users experience at the site. The content provided on the Web or in an e-business transaction is the raw material of user experience. Researchers must know what users saw so they understand the context of users reactions. This is not trivial because Web sites
are dynamic: promotional content changes over time, new functionality is added, pages are customized based on user preferences, ad banners rotate, and a single URL can render many different pages depending on visitor history and identity. Data collection must capture these paths in as much detail as possible so researchers understand how people transition between pages and how pieces of a site are experienced together.
New data collection methods can help usability researchers capture large amounts of user experience data while maintaining qualitative richness. These solutions combine the best of both approaches with marginal sacrifices. The result is a more robust and standardized process to conduct consistent, reliable, actionable usability research.
When user paths are aggregated instead of individual page hits, researchers can gain a better understanding of how to apply the user experience to their traffic reporting.
