07-19-2003
From major relaunch to continuous improvement. The world of user experience management has changed... forever.
Web site improvement is now a continuous, iterative process. Business is now established on the web.
Gone is the era in which we considered web sites to be akin to ad campaigns. Gone is the mentality of massive
redesigns every 12 to 18 months. Why?
- Because it can seldom be justified given the cost and the risks.
- Because the outcome is usually unpredictable (see white paper).
- Because a massive redesign frequently alienates many visitors simply because it represents a new learning curve.
- Because the most successful sites on the web are those that add functionality in very small steps and test continuously
to measure the impact.
- Because sites like E-Bay and Amazon have established many of the transaction standards and service protocols that users
expect.
This has considerable implications for the world of user experience management. It means that waves of massive research
surveys, focus groups and usability projects associated with redesigns are being replaced with automated customer voice
monitoring systems that enable continuous testing of multiple changes on a daily basis down to the page level, if necessary.
Customer voice monitoring systems such as DialogCentral and OnlineOpinion complement traffic and performance monitoring
to give a complete and continuous picture of user experience, page-by-page, site-wide. This complete monitoring solution
streamlines the user experience management process by dramatically reducing the time, cost and effort involved. These
systems monitor and test on a continuous basis and constantly alert web teams to take action to improve the site.
In most cases, the page ratings, visitor comments, contextual and behavioral information are sufficient for the team to
understand what changes are required to improve the site. Costly drilldown techniques such as research surveys, focus
groups and usability projects are employed far more expeditiously. The cost and time savings can be enormous.
Learn more about customer voice monitoring using DialogCentral or OnlineOpinion.
About OpinionLab
Since 1999, OpinionLab's patented OnlineOpinion system has enabled companies to monitor and improve the online user
experience by collecting continuous feedback from website visitors. Proven on over 2,000 sites in 22 languages worldwide,
OnlineOpinion dramatically reduces the time and cost associated with continuously optimizing the online user experience.
More information about OpinionLab can be found at http://www.opinionlab.com.
For more information:
Jay Rudman
OpinionLab, Inc.
847.681.6112
jrudman@opinionlab.com |
