data: digging deeper and displaying
DESCRIPTION
Data you gather is just data until it is analyzed, interpreted, and conveyed in a meaningful way. With Google Analytics incorrect conclusions can be drawn without doing an in-depth analysis. Wisniewski provides a framework for accurately assessing the data to make informed design decisions in combination with other user tests, surveys and focus groups.TRANSCRIPT
DATA: DIGGING DEEPER & DISPLAYING
JEFF WISNIEWSKI
WEB SERVICES LIBRARIAN
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
WHAT YOU INTERPRET IS WHAT U GET
THE BIG PICTURE IS TOO BIG
THE BIG PICTURE IS TOO BIG
Segment your site by:
Type of content aka your goals (more on this later)
Users’ goals
WAYS THAT YOUR QUALITATIVE DATA IS WRONG(ISH)
ARE YOU FILTERING IRRELEVANT TRAFFIC?
Staff IPs
BEWARE THE OUTLIER
Average Time on Page:
This is the average amount of time that all users spent on the specific page within the date range.
Simple, but remember this information can be easily skewed by the extreme boundaries of the results.
For example, say you had 10 people come to a Web page and this is how long they stayed on the page:
Person Time on page
1 2:23
2 2:12
3 1:39
4 40:44
5 1:49
6 2:01
7 1:33
8 2:09
9 1:17
10 1:56
BEWARE THE OUTLIER
If you add up the total amount of time you get 57:43 and then divide that 10 and you get an average time on page of about
6 minutes and 3 seconds.
THE BOUNCE RATE MYTH
We link to a LOT of third party sites from our websites:
Catalogs
Discovery tools
Overdrive
Databases
LibGuides
Book review sites
THE BOUNCE RATE MYTH
A user who visits your homepage and then visits one of these places has
WHEN THE COOKIE CRUMBLES*New vs Returning users relies on cookies.
• Up to 66% of users user multiple devices
• App. 30% of users deleted cookies deleted in a one month period
*I stole this title from the comscore article of the same name because I liked it
http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/When_the_Cookie_Crumbles
TIPS
Dig deeper
Provide context
Whenever possible visually display results
IT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A
PAGE-centric view
And a
USER-centric view
http://boxesandarrows.com/ux-design-planning-not-one-man-show/
FORBES MAGAZINE SAYS:
“If You Think A Web Analytics Tool Is Enough, Think Again”
(and if Forbes says it it MUST be true)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidwilliams/2012/04/16/if-you-think-a-web-analytics-tool-is-enough-think-again/
SIGH
Quantative is (relatively) easy
Qualitative is hard (er)
YOUR SITE
Needs to have SMART goals
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Timely
THESE GOALS SHOULD COME FROM TWO PLACES
Business objectives
• Yours or your parent organization’s mission and goals
User goals and objectives
• But how do I know what users want?
SOURCES OF INSIGHT
Global: Pew, Forrester, OCLC, etc.
Local: Your users
ASK THEM
USER INTERVIEWS AND PERSONAS
A persona is a fictional person who represents a major user group for your site.
Personas help you identify major user groups of your Web site.
You select the characteristics that are most representative of those groups and turn them into a persona.
USER INTERVIEWS AND PERSONAS
Interview representatives of you key demographics
A. Can you take me through your typical online routine? You open up your web browser and where do you go first?
B. E. You’ve been given an assignment to write a term paper on climate change with at least 4 sources cited throughout the paper.
C. i. What is the first thing you do?
USER INTERVIEWS AND PERSONAS
• How often do you go to the library website? • When do you go to the library website? What do you do when
you’re there? (Take participant to site)• What immediately draws your attention?• What features do you like/dislike?• Did you find the Website easy to use?
• Why or why not? • If not, what would make the site easier to use?
• What information did you expect to find but did not?
What links are the most important and should appear on the main page?
USER INTERVIEWS AND PERSONAS
Use the answers to develop personas that represent your users
Use the personas to develop a list of critical tasks for each demographic
STACEYfreshman
the source of the information can come from anywhere and is really irrelevant; she just needs to know where to look
uses often commercial search engines like Yahoo and Google to locate information
she doesn’t distinguish between the online catalog and the library web site; for her, the web site is just the way to get to the catalog with some additional information mixed in
Unaware of library tools and resources
needs help with the research process and is overly-confident about her own research skills, which may not be as strong as she thinks
spends a lot of time at the library to study for midterms and finals; wants to be able to check easily what the library hours are
she wants to easily connect to wi-fi and uses self-print for all her assigned readings
does not rely heavily on the library’s print journal collections; commonly uses e-journal collections
uses primarily books on reserve and rarely checks out a book or two from Hillman collection; expects Hillman library to have all the textbooks required by instructors and is surprised if they are not in the collection or are not placed on reserve for students
uses chat or calls the front desk to get help from library staff with locating a reference
uses her smart phone to find the call number of a book on reserve, see if a book is checked out and when is due back, or look up the syllabus, the course number, or the name of the instructor
USE PERSONAS TO IDENTIFY TOP TASKS BY AUDIENCE
What specific things does Stacey want to do on our site?
Set up GOALS and FUNNELS around these tasks
GOALS
Goal : the page a visitor reaches once they have completed a desired action
Funnel : The (optimized) steps along the way to the goal
THE GOAL
Sstep 1
Sstep 2
Sstep 3
THE FUNNEL
GOALS Name the goal something intuitive. In this example it might be “Class Registration”
Choose whether or you want the goal to be active (on) now
Most library scenario goals will probably fall under the “URL Destination” type
GOALSHere add the URL of the thank you page
*TIP
Exact match has to be EXACTLY the same as the URL….even leading or trailing spaces will cause it to fail
GOALS
add the URL(s) of the page(s) along the path a user would take to get from the homepage all the way through to the thank you page
MAYBE DIFFERENT METRICS FOR DIFFERENT CONTENT
Set up different profiles for:
Engagement content (blogs, guides, reviews)
Funnel content (get me to…databases, ejournals, catalog, etc)
Informational content (hours, policies)
MAYBE DIFFERENT METRICS FOR DIFFERENT CONTENT
Time on page:
Engagement content (blogs, guides, reviews): hopefully high
Funnel content (get me to…databases, ejournals, catalog, etc): hopefully very low
Informational content (hours, policies): hopefully low
COMMUNICATING THE RESULTS
KEY VISUALIZATIONS
TRAFFIC> SEARCH> ORGANIC
TRAFFIC> SEARCH> ORGANIC
CONTENT>LANDING PAGES &EXIT PAGES
CONTENT>LANDING PAGES &EXIT PAGES VIA VISITOR FLOW
CONTENT>TOP PAGES
CONTENT>TOP PAGES (IN-PAGE ANALYTICS)
QUESTIONS?
THANK YOU!