Monitoring Shared-eCommerce Platform MultiChannel User Experience

Posted on October 25, 2011 by deri

We have been involved in some interesting User Journey monitoring projects recently, for a couple of retailers trying to cover the full multi-channel user experience.

To achieve full multi-channel understanding measurement of dynamic User Journeys on the public website have been complemented with Journeys on the internal  in-store  shopping Kiosks and ePos systems as well as with Mobile User Journeys on the m-web mobile website.

But things are more tricky for clients on shared eCommerce platforms – the likes of Fresca,  Venda, IBM WebSphere and so on – that make it tricky to be sure your website will be ready for big traffic peaks.

Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

QA is not software testing: Quality is your Users Experience

Posted on October 11, 2011 by deri

It was an interesting day out Thursday at the Iqnite London QA and Software Testing Conference 2011.  An opportunity to bump into some known names in the QA space like Shane Kelly (QMF fame), who’s at our client William Hill, as well as to meet and network with new folk, and share the platform with old friends like Den from Dixons Stores.

The panel ran an interesting group session after lunch, involving a bit more energy as people moved round the room to reflect where they saw themselves on the continuum from being pure QA folk, or pure software Testing, or a bit of both. More of that later. Continue reading →

Posted in Application Performance Monitoring, Cloud Website Testing, Uncategorized, User Journey Testing, Website Monitoring, Website Performance Monitoring, WPM | Comments Off

Website monitoring support – clients rave about SciVisum support team

Posted on September 23, 2011 by deri

It’s been a  busy month, with a number of new clients coming on board who have upgraded from other suppliers’ traditional, basic services to our more sophisticated approach to website monitoring:  ‘Do what the Customer Does – No really – Do What They do , not a simplified series of static page hits‘.

But this week two specific instances really prove just how important that appraoch to monitoring methodolgy really is.  In fact, now that I think of it there are actually three instances if you count our remarkable Microsoft Azure performance testing results.*

Continue reading →

Posted in Application Performance Monitoring, Cloud Website Testing, User Journey Monitoring, Website Performance Monitoring, WPM, WPO | Comments Off

Why SciVisum Is Like The Matrix – The Eureka Moment

Posted on August 23, 2011 by deri

Is it a question of the known unknowns, or the unknown unknowns?

When talking to organisations about what SciVisum does, and what makes us different, we are always keen to get a live trial of our monitoring suite or testing services running on their own sites, using their own data.

Proof of Value as it’s sometimes called. Show, not tell, if you prefer. We can tell you how it works, and what it does, and why and how it does it, but in the end it’s like the Matrix. To misquote Morpheus “No one can tell you what what SciVisum does, you have to see it for yourself.”

Continue reading →

Posted in Inventory Monitoring, User Journey Monitoring, Website Monitoring, Website Performance Monitoring, WPM | Comments Off

Christmas eCommerce planning – Checking It Twice or losing it!

Posted on August 15, 2011 by deri

It’s that confusing time of year when the sun is shining outside the window, but the big projects on the go are Christmas ones!

It’s a no-brainer ROI wise, that eCommerce retail sites need to prepare for the Christmas rush, there is simply such a high value of sales at stake for most players.

Getting the IT eCommerce technology ready is therefore a common activity – but sometimes we see Load Test planning activity that is missing the boat – especially if the business teams have rather left the IT teams to it, and to have not provided helpful targets as to what is required.

Continue reading →

Posted in Website Capacity Planning, Website Load Testing | Comments Off

Travel technology: inventory monitoring on the site, confidence in lost sales reduction grows

Posted on July 25, 2011 by deri

It’s funny how things connect, and serendipitous outcomes result.

Tesco are not in the travel sector: but our website Load testing team completed another project last week for them: and in wash-up discussions afterwards we drifted into the growing power of our inventory monitoring services : and I was reminded of the discussions we had here in the past that kicked the concept off.

Back to the supermarket website some years ago: where we found an interesting, and costly bug. Continue reading →

Posted in Inventory Monitoring, Missing Product Monitoring, Travel Website Monitoring and Testing, User Journey Testing | Comments Off

Website performance gains are made via evidence – BBC should know better

Posted on July 14, 2011 by deri

A colleague draw my attention to this BBC news item today, which quotes an “online entrepreneur” saying “millions of pounds worth of business is probably being lost each week” in online retail due to the issue he raises (more on that later).

I hope that readers of that BBC piece  aren’t tempted to call their online colleagues and suggest there’s a new trick to help increase online sales because they will be disappointed.  The article is very low on evidence, and as the sites it names seem to be connected to the company of the “online entrepreneur” there’s a question is to whether the whole piece is just a  successful bit of PR cooked up to promote the name of a new online store for women’s tights.

All too often though, when talking to new clients about their web performance,  aspirations and activity to date, I do hear of time and money being spent on ideas that whilst not wrong as such, aren’t supported by evidence form the actual website in question. The most common end result is that well intentioned effort has produced a poor ROI in terms of any change to online sales.

The BBC article quotes Mr Dunstone saying that online retailers can double their sales by addressing  ‘simple spelling mistakes’, based on the evidence of… just one website, and one that is linked to Mr Dunstone. Humm.   That is not evidence – and anyone rushing to spend time and money based on it risks seeing very little return for their efforts.

But it doesn’t have to be that way – it doesn’t have to be tricky to get the right evidence for your specific site and to ensure you maximise the time and money spent on your online store for a couple of good reasons…

Continue reading →

Posted in Application Performance Monitoring, Lost Sales monitoring, Missing Product Monitoring, User Journey Monitoring, User Journey Testing, Website Monitoring, Website Performance Monitoring, WPM, WPO | Comments Off

Our iPhone App Monitoring service wins award at TechWorld 2011!

Posted on July 4, 2011 by deri

I’ve been to a  few awards dinners in my time, and even been short listed for an accolade:  just a few months back  in 2011 we were short-listed and received a Highly Commended from eConsultancy.com in the Innovation in E-commerce category.

But it was a great feeling last night at Dartmouth House, London at the TechMedia award ceremony to be top of the winners board, and stand up and collect the award for Best Cloud Product category, for our work on the SciVisum iPhone Application Monitor,  and we’re top of the 2011 TechWorld Award winners web page too!

And great to hear Techworld editor Mike Simons praise what our team had achieved, saying,  “A cloud based tool that monitors 24/7 mobile users’ experience of a website is the right technology for the right issue, right now”.

Continue reading →

Posted in Ajax Monitoring, Application Performance Monitoring, Browser monitoring, Cloud Website Testing, User Journey Monitoring, User Journey Testing, Website Monitoring, Website Performance Monitoring | Comments Off

Mobile User Experience on Gambling websites: Apps versus m-web

Posted on June 16, 2011 by deri

I’m just back from a very interesting day, at the inaugural mGaming Summit in London yesterday – where I shared the speaking platform alongside key folks from Ladbrokes, BlueSquare, PaddyPower and all the online gaming names.

Some interesting discussions on how to monitor what users do on your site.

There was a very surprising consensus about where the future is going -  from discussions comparing the pros and cons of running Apps for smart phones, versus making the m-web experience better for website visitors using mobile devices. But a future that bodes well for online user experience.

Continue reading →

Posted in Browser monitoring, User Journey Monitoring, User Journey Testing, Website Monitoring, Website Performance Monitoring | Comments Off

Monitor what Users do on your website

Posted on June 7, 2011 by deri

Aka:  Do what the Customer Does – not an artificial simplification of it.

If you want to know WHY users do what they do on your site:  web analytics can tell you the What:  but only by seeing what the user experience is like 24/7 as they actually ‘do what users do’ – can you find out if their behaviour is impacted by slow downs at busy periods in certain parts of the user journeys: or by pages with unexpected or wrong content shown.

It’s common for organisations to collect lots of data (if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it: is how the mantra goes).

And data on the live website is no exception:  with the advent of the web and web analytics over the last 10 years; there are a huge amount of  numbers derived from  users hitting pages on your website.  Marketing folks have become much more analytical and numeric; and spreadsheet ROI driven.

But not all data is of equal value in driving your online business forward.

So it was a nice quick win for a project this month – when the client realised that they’d been monitoring lots of stuff on the website: but had been missing  all along the experience of their actual users: and thus were quickly able to find and fix some glitches that had been hurting their online brand and sales, for some time  – ROI was a 2 % drop in abandoned carts.

Continue reading →

Posted in Browser monitoring, Lost Sales monitoring, User Journey Monitoring, Website Monitoring, Website Performance Monitoring | Comments Off