PDS Technology Overview
Autolytics' Product Decision Support is a client-server solution which provides near real-time and highly-detailed metrics and information for products and service performance. Going beyond simple, random surveys and generalized feedback, the PDS solution helps companies to engage the right customer at the right point of the product or service lifecycle with precision. This integrated approach allows PDS to leverage both wireless and the Internet to create a direct channel between the customer and the enterprise. The PDS client-server framework offers a complete solution for mapping the right customer data to your enterprise workflow inputs.
PDS client-server technology allows the enterprise to interact with the customer at the source and draw this information into the enterprise where it can be processed and presented in a meaningful way. Instead of merely transmitting formulaic surveys and feedback, PDS client-server feedback and evaluation allows accurate and precise data to be measured from the right part of the customer base throughout the product or service lifecycle.
PDS revolutionizes the analytics market with an innovative hybrid solution that combines qualitative and quantitative metrics to provide prioritized insights:
Figure 1.0 PDS Client-Server Architecture
Quality Control
Today, enterprises often conduct focus groups as a means of determining whether their application fits a particular market; however, what today’s focus groups cannot do is effectively quantify user feedback. Focus groups introduce risks in that a dominant personality may inhibit or alter the feedback provided by other participants, and often can only capture user feedback as snapshots of individuals’ recollections of particular aspects of a product or service. The result is, at best, skewed data, and at worst, bad data. This is not the kind of data that you want to use in deciding how to offer products and services.
The PDS platform starts with a broad cross-section of user feedback, but maintains quality control over the entire user feedback set by actively monitoring and taking action on outliers that might otherwise skew results. The net impact is more actionable results that manage user feedback rather than leaving dispersed points of view in your analysis.
Success Forecasting
The PDS platform collects usage data from users in a real-world environment, and uses this to help predict user behavior after launch such as how usage patterns will change over time and which users are likely to stop using your application. By tapping a broad range of usage information, the PDS platform can accurately predict when churn is likely to happen, to whom, and allow for corrective action before a user is lost.
Automated Usability Testing
The PDS platform and thin-client library automates the collection of user feedback via a simplified hot-key user interface. Depending on requirements, a number of optional functions can be tapped inside the client library for collecting user feedback.
Development Impact Analytics
PDS enable enterprises to pin-point issues and prioritize feature development. For example, PDS analyzes user feedback, usage and application state information while users test, play or otherwise interact with an application. The PDS platform utilizes the resulting set of qualitative and quantitative data to prioritize development and determine the impact that each issue will have on the success of the product. What net impact will fixing a particular bug have versus adding new functionality to your application? The PDS platform’s internal algorithms analyze user feedback from various points of view to determine relevance and prioritize the impact of development fixes or changes.
User State Capture
For a data capture tool to be effective, it must capture the data you need to assess the service offering. Today this information cannot be accurately collected while the individual is actively engaged in using the product. The PDS platform provides user and application state capture in a passive mode, while the user is actively using the application. This approach eliminates user errors in perceived behavior or experiences and provides state information from the actual moment in time. This state-sensitive capture capability is the heart of PDS platform.
Live Feedback
Waypoint or location information can be passed from the client to the PDS platform for quantitative and qualitative analysis of user feedback. The PDS platform collects user feedback without ever intruding on the user experience - user state data is collected using Autolytics innovative technique to passively collect state or other critical information from inside your applications. Conversely, the PDS platform, through live feedback and automated user state capture, tracks activity over time or in real-time and corroborates user feedback/input with their actions. Consequently, you are getting a realistic picture of what the user is doing right then, at that moment in the application. This type of immediate qualitative and quantitative data will allow you to make quicker and better decisions on how to offer your products and services.