Why User Experience Data Is Vital In Driving Operational Efficiencies And Cost Savings “It's not about making money; it’s is about making MORE money.” Introduction – Unlocking Important Hidden Data About Machine Data Definition:“Machine Data refers to the information that is automatically created from a computer process or application, without the intervention of a human.” Traditional analysis of machine data logs provides businesses with some very useful information, but such logs are limited, do not provide any insight as to actual system use, and are not able to provide any true User-Experience information. UNTIL NOW. Analyzing User Experience (UX) Data helps a business identify areas in need of improved operational efficiency, employee productivity and satisfaction - and most critically, can identify significant cost saving opportunities. This paper describes the central importance of analyzing the User Experience; how it can improve your business in vital areas like cost control, operational efficiency, service level conformance, software asset management, user satisfaction and customer loyalty. The paper also explores the challenges businesses face and how the value of actual ‘User interface data’ is increased (as distinct from predictive modelling and algorithmic approximations). In tandem with ‘machine data’, User experience data completes the picture of the health of an organization. UX WHITEPAPER 1 Copyright 2014 – Logfiller® Inc. All Rights Reserved | www.logfiller.com The Critical Value User Experience (UX) Data Can Bring To Your Business The User Experience “includes everything the user encounters and does, when interacting with a product, service, environment or facility” – a much larger concept than simple usability. As soon as an organization has a true and complete understanding of how each User interacts with their desktop (including website, apps etc.) complemented by data showing for example, system response times, logon delays, and use of specific sites or tools, it can immediately make improvements in productivity and employee satisfaction. Happy people are 12% more productive than their unhappy colleagues, according to fastcoexist.com, and for most businesses, that means higher productivity and revenue, reduced cost and less staff turnover. Problem: Joe calls the Helpdesk every Monday, complaining about the time it takes to log onto his system. Solution: The IT team looks at dashboards reporting on every event – including every microsecond of delay experienced by every desktop user, and makes adjustments to ensure that the system is efficiently meeting the Users’ actual needs… and Joe can log on without delay. What is Machine Data and Why it is No Longer Enough? Businesses use SIEM, Log Analyzer and Big Data solutions to help them understand more about their systems, networks and usage. Such solutions process ‘machine data’ - for example, Operating System events, disk RAM, processor and network usage, all of which is then used together with network gateway logs and often ‘best guess’ estimates based on data modelling or complex algorithms. Taken together, these sources add up to an approximation, a derived rather than actual picture of what is going on. One expert recently called it “a bit like describing a sporting event from the ticket booth. Useful but not actual.” For first responders, lives depend on rapid response to calls, without delays caused by the IT system or network capacity. Although these solutions are central to the success of contemporary methods, they do not provide actual data on any business’ most valuable asset, the User. Machine data is important but insufficient to generate the full picture that today’s businesses need; factual knowledge of the User Experience is vital in ensuring that employees are productive, that the IT strategy is on point and that IT resources, costs, SLAs and applications are working as they should – according to what they are paid to do. UX WHITEPAPER Copyright 2014 – Logfiller® Inc. All Rights Reserved | www.logfiller.com Challenges Businesses Face Today When technology underperforms, as it often does, employees become unhappy, whether it’s frustration at the time it takes to log-on to their desktop in the morning, access customer records or load a web page. It’s all too easy for their focus to wander from their job toward social communications or unauthorized websites. The internal and external challenges that all businesses face are many and complex with finite resources to overcome them. To contain initially small issues, both real and potential before they build to an insurmountable crescendo, a business needs to be able to identify and pre-empt them quickly and easily in order to minimize lost time and the hidden costs incurred through poor productivity. To date, there has been no complete answer to the following questions: How do you capture and analyze the data you need to understand exactly what your Users are experiencing? How do you track what your Users are spending their time on? How do you gain a complete view of how well your current system and applications are working? How can you do all this – and remain compliant with privacy and data protection regulation? For most businesses, these are important questions that remain unanswered. In the industry there is a state of denial about performance; managers often know things aren't great (slow systems, wasted money, poor compliance, etc.) but don't want to raise awareness of the problems for fear of being held personally accountable, denied budgets for new projects, losing a pay raise or even their job. To date, the capability to capture such data has not existed. But that’s all changing now. UX WHITEPAPER A technology services business, under contract with Company X, wants to invest $500k in a new desktop solution. Customer experience monitoring software provides the data showing precisely where the problems are, how big they are, the factual basis justifying the ROI and the associated rise in operational efficiency. Copyright 2014 – Logfiller® Inc. All Rights Reserved | www.logfiller.com The New Solution Software designed specifically to monitor and capture data directly at the user interface, integrated with existing data analysis tools (such as Splunk, LogRhythm, Arcsight, ManageEngine among others) can provide valuable insight into key areas of your IT and business operations: Where money can be saved on underutilized IT resources Where you are losing time through usage and system performance anomalies How you can increase efficiency by improving your UX and increasing staff satisfaction How you can improve vendor performance under Service Level Agreements (SLA) Where your hidden costs are and what you can do to reduce them This data gives IT teams, consultants and external contractors the insight they need to uncover poor performance and show the organization the benefit of investing in fixing it. (NB: the value is not in the PC itself but in the user – the business's most important and usually most expensive asset). After all, you can’t fix what you can’t see; in other words; “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it” So, What Should you Measure, and Why? 1. Acquire event data directly from the user interface, for example from the User’s mouse such as mouse cursor wait-time, which enables you to capture the previously unavailable UX data. 2. Generate and capture events that measure the entire UX, for example, slow systems, logon delays and system response times, helping you to understand how to improve productivity and staff satisfaction. 3. Identify underused applications and monitor license compliance to save money. 4. Monitor the websites, intranets and applications your Users spend their time on, track the usage of internal tools and determine the real service levels they achieve. This will quantify the ROI in key services and operations and help you build future business cases – while allowing you to address staff productivity and HR issues. UX WHITEPAPER Copyright 2014 – Logfiller® Inc. All Rights Reserved | www.logfiller.com A Word On Data Protection Over the years, businesses have been severely harmed by breaches in staff and customer privacy and data protection compliance has become a key focus. Although perfectly legitimate, these concerns have had an unwelcome side effect: one of the most valuable sources of operational data, the user interface, has remained largely untapped. Although privacy and data protection laws are not going to go away (nor should anyone want them to), they should not block you from accessing user interface data and the invaluable insights it provides your business. Businesses must be mindful of the key issues and take effective action to protect users; for example, Logfiller’s anonymity mask allows you to make personal identification data, such as computer or user names, anonymous. In briefest terms, Logfiller offers you several immediate routes to cost savings, meaning more revenue to your bottom line. It is literally, verifiably true: “Logfiller isn’t about making money – Logfiller is about making MORE money!” For further information on what you need to do to better understand your User Experience and deliver the best possible service, visit www.logfiller.com or contact your Logfiller service provider. – END – UX WHITEPAPER Copyright 2014 – Logfiller® Inc. All Rights Reserved | www.logfiller.com