User experience is paramount in designing web applications

User experience and your web application — is it really part of your mission and vision? Mark Hurst of Good Experience recognizes companies that “do it right” through the 2008 Copernican Awards — i.e. who takes care of the customer?

Popular web applications have made it to the final round, including Facebook, Fresh Direct, kayak, and Survey Monkey.

Startups developing their applications should definitely follow their example. Don’t be like those companies that “invest” in template-from-1999 websites and can hardly be bothered (or don’t know how to) to see if their links actually work or if their font is even readable.

You take into account user experience in your version 1… and all the versions thereafter. Not everyone can afford a dedicated UX team or a usability lab but there are workarounds. From an alpha version, followed by iterations. These iterations are then triggered the continuous feedback systems set in place from the start.

There’s feedback directly given to the development team which can be coursed through ticket systems, user forums, contact forms and email messages (tip: use IMAP so you can sync across different team members and prepare template responses), CRMs, phone reps.

Then there’s the tracking of actual on-the-ground user-session data — and understanding that mass of data.

To track user behavior is essential to making any software effective — if the software vendor were really dedicated to serving his customer and not just out to make a buck.

Brick-and-mortar companies like consumer goods or fashion apparel get their user feedback only through indirect methods. They sit down with focus groups, ask survey questions, hire mystery shoppers, or place a customer service hotline on their product. Their end-user has to exert actual effort. They have to rely on samples as opposed to 100% of their user base.

We’re quite lucky that web applications can log user behavior more religiously — even track all of it. Marketers, developers, and business owners are capable of understanding their users through visual representations with adorable names like heatmaps and confetti.

• Omniture
• Google Analytics, SiteMeter
• CrazyEgg. Free/Premium accounts available
• Clicktale. Listen to Clicktale CEO Tal Schwartz Free/Premium accounts available

What startup web applications, live right now, from the Philippines can you say truly takes into consideration UX? If you track user behavior, what tools do you use?