Develop Smarter Products

When someone asks me about Business Intelligence, I will usually say that it is about analyzing the data that a business already has, and the truth is that businesses collect huge amounts of useful data. However, there are many interesting applications where we go out and collect specific data for analysis. We heard about one such application at the February meeting of the SDForum Business Intelligence SIG where Cameron Turner, CEO of ClickStream Technologies, spoke on "Software Instrumentation: How to Develop Smarter Products with Built-in Customer Intelligence".

ClickStream Technologies has a data collector that collects user interactions with GUI based user interfaces. That data is loaded into a data warehouse for analysis of the user experience. Contrast the ClickStream method with other techniques for for analyzing program usage. The most common method is to analyze the logs generated by a program, but logs are typically recorded some distance from the user interface and tends to capture the end result of what the user did rather than how the user did it. For example, if there are several ways in which a function can be invoked, programs logs normally record that the function has been invoked, but not how it was invoked. Also collecting more information involves modifying the program to increase the log data that it produces, which is not always practical. The ClickStream data collector runs as a stand alone program and collects its data with minimum intrusion into the running of the program being instrumented. Another technique for gathering user experience data is to have someone stand behind the user and record what they do, but this is labor intensive and does not allow for large scale studies.

There are many reasons for evaluating the user experience with a program. Cameron lists them in his presentation which you can get a copy of by visiting the files area of the Business Intelligence SIG Yahoo Group. The one that is closest to my heart is providing feedback to the designers of a program that their design leaves a lot to be desired. There are many times when I have become frustrated with a program because I cannot find out how to do the the simplest and most obvious thing. This is when I wish that someone was recording my problems and feeding them back to the development team.

ClickStream Technologies started off as a consulting company. They are moving their offering towards something that is more standardized with the idea that eventually customers will be able to use it on a self service basis. Currently each engagement requires configuring the data collector and writing reports for the analysis. Also for each engagement they recruit a panel of testers who download the data collector. As such, is it more suitable for medium to large sized companies that want to do large scale studies.