integrating web analytics into information architecture and user-centered design

Integrating web analytics Integrating web analytics into information architecture into information architecture

and user-centered designand user-centered design

2008 IA Summit

Hallie Wilferthallie_wilfert@sra.com

Or the boring title….

Integrating web analytics Integrating web analytics into information architecture into information architecture

and user-centered designand user-centered design

2008 IA Summit

Hallie Wilferthallie_wilfert@sra.com

Overview

• What is web analytics?• Why should you care? • What it can and can’t tell you about

your web site• How to implement a web analytics

program• How to quickly analyze web statistics

data

What is web analytics?

• Web Analytics Association’s official definition:– Web Analytics is the measurement,

collection, analysis and reporting of Internet data for the purposes of understanding and optimizing Web usage.

What is web analytics?

• AKA Web stats, web statistics, the gigantic report that comes every month that no one looks at

• Quantitative data collected about web site activity

• Interpreted through a web analytics software

What I use

• Urchin • Webtrends• Analog• Clicktracks• ACSI / Foresee Survey

Why should you care?

• It’s USER RESEARCH!• IAs are good investigators

Why you should care

• Statistics are captured 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

• Can locate areas that need further investigation

• Sets the stage for additional user centered design

Where it fits in

What it does not do

• WHAT people do but not WHY they do it

• Some things must be planned for in advance– Tracking where people go– Tracking within flash or other dynamic

apps

Implement a web analytics program

• Quick wins, start small• Show impact• Presentation of data matters

– Summarize the key issues and tell people what to pay attention to

• Analytics software only does part of the job– A person needs to interpret the data and

add the context

Truth and Heresy

• You do not need to be a statistician to implement an analytics program

• You do need to be a good communicator and a good interpreter

• Do not expect or promise accuracy• Trends are more important than

exact numbers

So, your first assignment…

• You are about to start working on a web site

• Your goal is to improve the site’s user experience

• You ask, “Do you have web site statistics I can look at?”

• They say, “Yes” and hand over the stats

Step 1: Check out the web site

• Mission & Goals• Audience• Key pages for the user• Key pages for the business• Technical assessment

– URL structure

Step 2: Check the accuracy of the stats report

• Has the report been set up correctly? • Are searchbots, spiders, and other non-

human visitors being excluded?– Is the top visitor to the site

“crawl−66−249−65−83.googlebot.com_Mozilla/5.0 (compatible;Googlebot/2.1; http://www.google.com/bot.html)”?

• Are internal visitors being excluded?– Make sure to exclude employees, contractors,

and others who work on the site.

Step 3: Read through the report quickly

• Get a high-level overview of what is being reported on and the overall trends.

• What are the pages that appear frequently?

• Are these key pages or pages that you did not expect to see?

• What are people searching for on the site?

Step 4: Look at a number of months’ reports side by side.

• Get a sense of the trends. – Is there more traffic during the week

than the weekend– Are certain pages popular only during a

particular part of the year?– Are the same pages appearing over and

over again? – Are there some pages that do really well

and then fall off the radar?

Step 5: Connect with the communications team

• Are there promotions and campaigns that you should be aware of that might impact traffic?

• What are the hot issues that might get people to your site organically?

Step 6: Prioritize what you pay attention to

• Visits and page views• Average pages viewed• Site navigation preferences• Entry and exit pages• Most popular content• Traffic to key pages• Keywords that referred people to the site• Keywords used on internal search engine• Referrers • Conversion

Pay attention to

• Visits and page views– Overall trends– Individual pages

• Documents

Pay attention to

• Site navigation preferences– Are visitors going where you want

them too?– Are people getting stuck

Site navigation preferences

Site navigation preferences

Pay attention to

• Entry and Exit pages– Are visitors leaving at expected or

unexpected places?

Entry & Exit pages

Entry & Exit pages

Pay attention to

• Keywords– Internal Search Engine– External Search Engine

Pay attention to

• Referrers– From Search Engines– From External Sites

Step 6: Prioritize what you pay attention to

• Conversion– How people get through a process or

set of pages

Conversion

Conversion

Conversion

Conversion

Conversion

Conversion

Anything else?

• Intranet– Look at the top users and go to them for

feedback

Step 7: Analytics applied to User Centered Design

• Are the goals of the site being met? • Are people getting to the pages that

they need? • Are people getting to the pages that

the business wants them to get to? • How have changes to the site design

impacted the site’s traffic?

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What can you do with it?

• Analyze patterns in Web site usage• Benchmark Web performance and

set goals• Locate problems• Predict opportunities for growth• Measure the effectiveness of Web

site• Help direct Web site strategy

Step 8: Present the information clearly

• Answer questions• Provide next steps• Make connections between the

numbers and the real world• Make it interesting

Good resources

• Web Analytics Demystified: http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/

• Occam’s Razor: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/• Web Analytics: An Hour a Day by Avinash

Kaushik • Search Analytics: http://

www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/searchanalytics/• Web Analytics Association’s standard

definitions: http://www.webanalyticsassociation.org/attachments/committees/5/WAA-Standards-Analytics-Definitions-Volume-I-20070816.pdf

Wrapping up

Questions?