What is end-user experience monitoring?

In today's hyper-connected world, web applications and platforms are the cornerstone of our daily activities. From routine tasks like checking the weather or managing finances to booking a vacation, these digital tools seamlessly integrate into every aspect of our lives. However, when these applications malfunction—whether due to unexpected errors, crashes, or slow loading times—the consequences can be far-reaching. Simply monitoring the technical health of these applications isn't enough. To ensure a consistently smooth experience, businesses need to directly measure the user's experience itself.

Imagine a scenario where a bug disrupts the online loan application process for a bank. Traditional application monitoring might reveal the technical error, but wouldn't capture the lost business opportunity and customer frustration. End-user experience monitoring will help the bank track user journeys through the application, identify pain points causing delays or drop-off, and streamline the process. However, just measuring user experience isn't enough. To gain actionable insights, businesses need to track the correct key metrics. In this blog, we will cover the key end-user monitoring metrics you need to monitor to deliver a flawless experience to users.

Metrics you need to keep track of

1. Network latency:Network latency is a pivotal metric in end-user experience monitoring due to its direct impact on the responsiveness and usability of web applications. For instance, while attempting to join a virtual meeting, you might have encountered delays between actions and audio when participants share their screens and speak. These delays are caused by high network latency, which essentially slows down the data transmission between you and the video conferencing application.
Low latency networks, on the other hand, ensure faster response times. This translates to a smoother and more efficient application experience. Here are two best practices to monitor network latency:

• Track latency alongside core user experience issues. This integrated approach allows you to correlate latency spikes with specific application performance issues, providing a clearer picture of where bottlenecks might lie. For example, a sudden increase in latency might coincide with a surge in application response times, indicating a potential network congestion issue impacting overall user experience.

• Don't just monitor latency in isolation. Establish baseline latency expectations based on factors like user location, application type, and historical trends. By setting these benchmarks within your end-user experience monitoring tool, you can configure alerts to trigger whenever latency deviates significantly from the norm.

2. Response time: Response time refers to the time it takes for your system, whether a website or app, to react to a user's action. Fast response times contribute to a positive user experience, whereas slow response times lead to frustration and a perception of sluggishness or even unresponsiveness. For instance, research by Hobo Web states that a 2-second delay in load time could result in abandonment rates of up to 87%. Here's how to effectively monitor response time and implement best practices:

• Measure response time end-to-end: Don't get caught in a trap of monitoring individual components assuming a fast response from each translates to a fast user experience. Track the entire journey, from the user's click to the response rendering on their screen. This holistic approach ensures you capture any bottlenecks along the way.

• Set benchmarks and analyze trends: Establish clear benchmarks for acceptable response times based on industry standards and your specific user base. Continuously monitor and analyze trends over time. This helps identify areas that are consistently exceeding acceptable response times, allowing you to prioritize optimization efforts.

3. Error rate:Errors often indicate underlying bugs or defects within the application code. Tracking error rates provides valuable insights into the frequency and nature of these issues, but effective monitoring goes beyond basic tracking. Businesses can leverage a combination of data sources like dedicated error monitoring tools, and even user-reported errors. Correlating error rates with user behavior data within end-user experience monitoring tools helps pinpoint specific user actions or features prone to errors. Setting error rate benchmarks and alerts allows for proactive problem-solving, while segmenting error analysis by user group or application feature provides deeper insights for targeted troubleshooting. By prioritizing data quality, analyzing errors within context, and focusing on root cause analysis, businesses gain a comprehensive understanding of error rates and ensure a more stable and reliable user experience.

4. Apdex score: An Apdex score is a valuable metric in end-user experience monitoring as it simplifies complex response time data into a single, user-centric score that reflects overall user satisfaction with an application's performance. It typically ranges from 0 (worst) to 1 (best). An Apdex score is calculated based on three categories of response times:

a) Satisfied: Usually, a high Apdex score of 0.8 or above indicates that the response times have met or exceeded user expectations.
b) Tolerated: A score between the range 0.5 and 0.8 indicates that the response times are slower than ideal but still tolerable. In this case, users might still experience some minor inconvenience.
c) Frustrated: A low score (0.5 and below) suggests significant performance issues that might require attention.

A low Apdex score calls for targeted action. Analyzing response time data pinpoints bottlenecks like overloaded servers, slow code, or large images. Teams can then optimize server infrastructure, refactor code, reduce image sizes, and leverage content delivery networks for more efficient distribution of information and data. In addition, prioritizing frequently used features and implementing progressive rendering can further enhance user experience.5. Device and browser performance: Monitoring user experience across various devices and browsers is crucial for a successful online presence. Imagine having an application that works flawlessly on your desktop only to discover that it lags and displays poorly on mobile—where a significant portion of your user base lies. By tracking performance metrics on different devices and browsers, you can identify compatibility issues, rendering problems, and slow loading times. Some of the actions that you can take to ensure optimal performance of your applications across devices and browsers include:

• Implement a real end-user experience monitoring tool that will provide valuable real-world insights by collecting user experience data from across different devices, browsers, and geographic locations. This data can reveal performance issues specific to certain user segments.
• Track key performance indicators across different devices and browsers. Set clear benchmarks and monitor trends to identify areas that consistently fall below performance expectations.
• Conduct regular testing sessions across a variety of popular devices and browsers. This allows you to identify user interface inconsistencies or functionality issues that automated tools might miss.

6. Third-party services performance: Sometimes external factors could bog down the performance of your website. Many digital products rely on third-party services like payment gateways, social media integrations, or analytics tools. While you can't directly control these services, their performance significantly impacts your user experience. By monitoring the performance of these integrated services, teams can proactively identify issues and work with the providers for solutions. In some cases, switching to alternative services or implementing redundancy plans might be necessary. To ensure a better user experience, it's important that you maintain open communication with providers, conduct periodic reviews, and implement fallback strategies will further help mitigate risks.

A centralized approach to end-user experience management helps streamline your monitoring efforts. ManageEngine Applications Manager's end-user experience monitoring capability enables you to consolidate back-end and front-end data of all applications into a single platform. This will empower you to monitor end-user experience by drilling down into specific user journeys, pinpointing performance bottlenecks that cause frustration, and troubleshooting issues faster. To learn how our product helps you, download a free, 30-day trial or schedule a personalized demo with an expert today!