How to Measure End User Experience?

Traditionally, end user experience was measured using synthetic user transactions. Every step of a user interaction with a web site/web application was recorded and periodically played back from different locations to check the availability and responsiveness of each step. The exact step at which user experience took a beating can be isolated in the process. What’s questionable about this approach though is its reliability! Since the user experience metrics captured using this approach are based on ‘simula ted’ transactions and not ‘actual’ user transactions, you may end up having user experience measured even when there is no real load on the service!

This is exactly where Real User Monitoring scores! This is a passive monitoring technology that records all real (not emulated) user transactions to a website or web application. In the process, response time metrics are collected for every transaction of each user in real-time. When there is no load, response time will not be captured! This way, the Real User Monitor captures the true user experience with a web site/web application.

Though an ideal user experience monitor would be one that supports both synthetic and real user monitoring, for accurate insights into actual transaction load and to know what a user really sees, Real User Monitoring is essential.