There are many types of optimization software on the market. While most focus on what's happening on the UI layer, there are several which dig a little deeper, exposing opportunities to optimize what's underneath - the software features and functionality, the algorithm and infrastructure components - those components which also contribute to the optimal user experience (whether it's obvious to users and you as an Internet professional or not).
Optimization solution SiteSpect is one vendor serving enterprises also interested in optimizing that underlying experience for users. Today the company released a new solution dubbed Origin Experiments which can be used by Internet retailers to assess the impact of new feature releases in real-time, segment features to present functionality to different audiences, make head-to-head comparisons of different versions of search algorithms, conduct price experiments such as "free shipping", as well as the checkout flow. For example, with Origin Experiments it's possible to test the impact of a 5-step versus 3-step checkout process and quantify the impact.
"The rapid growth in adoption of agile practices, fueled by increased competition across online brands, has led to a steady increase in the pace of new site releases and other development efforts," said Eric J. Hansen, Founder and CEO of SiteSpect. "At the same time, the growing focus on measurement and analytics has put increased pressure on product teams to quantify the impact of their efforts, and generally become more sophisticated around their use of user behavior data to guide site improvement. SiteSpect Origin Experiments addresses both these needs by enabling site operators to optimize the features and functionality of their site to quantifiably improve the user experience."