Enhance user insights with Custom Measurements & Timing

When we talk about Real User Monitoring (RUM), it’s easy to get wrapped up in metrics—the hard numbers that tell us about our users’ experiences. But RUM is more than just data; it’s the foundation for improving performance, an essential key to user experience. The big question is: how do you accurately measure that experience across different kinds of applications?

The metrics tracked by RUM can be broken down into several key pillars: Errors, Core Web Vitals, Network, API performance, and more. Each of these areas give us critical insights into the overall picture of user experience. But to truly optimize that experience, you need custom metrics that go beyond the basics.

Not all apps are created equal

Different apps serve different purposes, which means they shouldn’t all be measured the same way. An ecommerce app, for instance, will have different performance priorities than a music streaming app or a flight booking service. Each app has unique goals, and what defines “good” performance varies widely across different types of applications.

Consider a few examples:

• A user management application may need to monitor the load times of complex data tables, while a shopping app might prioritize image load times and checkout speed.
• A financial app might need to track transaction times to ensure quick money transfers, while a content-heavy site might care about video playback speed.

RUM, as powerful as it is, can’t possibly account for every specific metric needed by each type of app. That’s where custom metrics come in.

The power of customization

The ability to send custom data points empowers developers to capture the precise data that matters most to their app’s unique needs, going beyond the essentials provided by standard RUM. Developers can monitor domain-specific performance indicators and business-critical actions that directly impact user experience and app success. Here are some examples where customization in RUM truly shines:

1. Domain-specific performance – An airline booking app can track the time it takes to display flight search results, while an image-heavy site can measure how quickly key images load to ensure a seamless experience.
2. Business-critical transactions – In a financial app, Custom Metrics allow tracking of transaction times, ensuring that crucial actions like money transfers are fast and reliable.
3. User behavior insights – Ecommerce platforms can capture data on cart abandonment after price checks or track how long users take to make a purchase, helping optimize conversion rates.
4. Bespoke user journeys – For a B2B project management tool, Custom Metrics enable tracking of specific workflows, like the time taken to generate and export reports, giving insights into productivity.

By leveraging custom data points, developers can gain tailored insights that go beyond standard RUM, enabling more informed decisions to optimize their applications for better, more personalized user experiences.

Introducing Custom Measurements & Customized Timing

To address these needs, we’ve released two new features: Custom Measurements and Customized Timing. These powerful features let developers go beyond standard metrics, filling the gaps to capture critical data points that directly impact their app’s performance and user experience.

Custom Measurements

Custom Measurements empower developers to send any metric or numerical value that’s important for their app. This feature essentially transforms the RUM SDK into a dynamic tool for capturing both structured and unstructured data, allowing for measurements that align closely with an app’s specific goals.

With Custom Measurements, developers can track specific KPIs or events that aren’t part of the standard RUM data collection, making it easier to pinpoint areas for optimization. For example, let’s say you’re working on a video platform and need to track video start time. Here’s how you could capture this custom metric:

CoralogixRum.sendCustomMeasurement('time-to-video-start', 1000);

In this example, time-to-video-start represents the time from page load to video playback. Tracking this allows developers to understand delays in video start, which could signal areas for improvement. By measuring what matters most, Custom Measurements offer developers a more personalized view into their app’s performance.

Customized Timing

The Customized Timing feature is designed to capture specific loading times for key interactions or components within an app. By placing timing functions at any point in the user journey, developers can measure from page load to a specific event or interaction, giving them granular insights.

Here’s how Customized Timing can benefit various app types:

1. Loading specific components: In a content-heavy app, Customized Timing can track how long it takes for essential elements, like articles or videos, to load.
2. Key interaction points: For example, a developer may want to measure the time it takes for users to complete a form after landing on a page. With Customized Timing, capturing that performance metric is easy.

Imagine a news site with extensive text-based content. Using Customized Timing, the developer could measure the time it takes for all text to load, a crucial metric for gauging user experience.

Example Use Case: Text Content Loading

CoralogixRum.addTiming('finish-loading-content');

With finish-loading-content, developers can monitor how long it takes for the primary text content to appear, identifying bottlenecks that slow down meaningful interaction with the site.

Optimize user experiences with customization 

Real User Monitoring shouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all solution. Each app has unique needs, and its performance should be measured accordingly. By offering features like Custom Measurements and Customized Timing, we’re giving developers the flexibility to capture precisely the data they need, enabling targeted optimizations that improve user experience.

Through these new tools, RUM goes beyond standard metrics to provide a fully customizable monitoring framework. Developers can now craft their own measurement strategies, adapting them to their unique business goals. With Custom Measurements and Customized Timing, it’s about more than just data; it’s about turning that data into actionable insights and ultimately transforming insights into a better experience for users. To learn more about Coralogix Real User Monitoring, check out our documentation.