Online Usability Live Testing Service Reveals Best Design Solutions In Real-Time

Usetracker
http://www.usetracker.com
= breakthrough tool
Online Service
from USD $ 25/month

A different approach from the one provided by pioneering Clicktracks in trying to provide an effective way to track and analyze user preferences on a web site is the one provided by a new online service called Usetracker.

While Clicktracks works offline on your server log files, Usetracker works "live" on your actual web pages by login all visitors clicks in their own database which is serviced by Divine Inc.

The advantage of this approach is that you can see the data in real-time, can use the service for the time you need it with a more moderate investment, and can find out information not otherwise accessible inside server logs.

While you may have thought of the contrary or given for granted the idea, server logs do NOT contain information about link preference and user choice inside a page. They only collect info about each web page being accessed. Thus, I could not be able to tell, with a server log analysis-based tool, which one between two links leading to the same exact page is being clicked.

Usetracker allows live test of clickable web page elements.
Under circumstances that may require it Usetracker allows to instantly put up several alternative versions of the same page and to live test how effective each one is.

The setup is extremely fast and (if you select automatic mode) it allows you to start monitoring the results within a few minutes.

PROS:
Fast and easy to setup. You need only to know your server FTP access info (username and password).

 

 

Usetracker can automatically email reports on a daily or weekly basis.

Live tests to evaluate different solutions simultaneously.

Inexpensive.

CONS:
Usetracker does NOT with the following types of pages:

1) Flash: If you have a link inside of your flash file, it will not be effected by the test and it will not be tracked.

2) Forms: form submissions are not tracked.

3) Frames: you would need to register each frame as a separate test. You can only see the results of that frame - not in context of the rest of the page.

4) Dynamic links / Dynamically generated pages: Usetracker takes a snapshot of your web page. Therefore, if you have dynamic links or other dynamic data, (e.g. the visitors name) the UseTracker version of your page will be whatever version we happened to get.

Usetracker will add a small, negligible delay to each page that it is tracking. Plus, you should be aware that if ever the Usetracker server goes down your web page being tracked will become inaccessible to all.

To see an example of a Usetracker report for a Web page go to:
http://www.usetracker.com/myaccount/ report.asp?hp=yes

Usetracker costs USD $ 25/month for up to 25,000 page views.