Pat’s Point of View

On more than a few occasions recently, I’ve been quite surprised by the level of knowledge—and apathy—surrounding tracking website usage.

Then I read Karl Groves’ recent article The Limitations of Server Log Files for Usability Analysis on Boxes and Arrows. Here’s a snippet:

Server log files are inappropriate for gathering usability data. They are meant to provide server administrators with data about the behavior of the server, not the behavior of the user. The log file is a flat file containing technical information about requests for files on the server. Log file analysis tools merely assemble them in a conjecture-based format aimed at providing insight into user behavior.

When speaking with the owners and managers of websites and intranets, I’m often told that they have ‘tracking’ on their website, but probing deeper I find they are referring to simple web statistics (read “hits”). Looking at the kind of information they are getting from their reports, I am usually disappointed. This old style web stats is just not sufficient these days, and I thought we had got past this.

I’m no expert in web analytics (might I suggest Hurol Inan for someone who is) but I don’t need to be, since most people I’m working with are still struggling with the basics. Like getting any sort of reporting at all. If you don’t know how people are using your website, you’re flying blind.

Don’t get me wrong, no matter how good your web analytics are, it’s still at most, only half the picture. To understand why your audience is doing what they’re doing you’ll need to brush off those ’soft skills’ and meet your users; user testing, observation and other ethnographic techniques can give you all the data you’d ever need in this regard. But, as with all things, you need a balance. Especially since they can be so easy to gather, web analytics are a good nominee for ‘quick win’ status. It should be a “no brainer” to know what users are doing on your site, even if you don’t yet know why.

The main culprit for this situation, beyond ignorance of anything better, seems to be IT administrators refusing to play ball. I’m never that surprised to hear that no better information about site usage is possible, because some guy in IT said so. However, there is a simple solution to this: build a business case for better analytics and use business to trump technology! It’s not that hard, look for ways in which good web analytics can empower decisions regarding the website. No other part of the organisation (I hope) is operating without some meaningful form of measurement, so if your website is a key channel for your organisation—be it sales, marketing or another objectives—you can’t keep flying blind.

I have started to become quite an advocate for Google Analytics. Not because I think it’s the best thing out there, but because it works well and the value for money on offer is phenomenal. Particularly if you’re generating uninformative ‘reports’ using Analog or something similar, that honestly tell you nothing useful. So I’m amazed that some people haven’t heard of Google Analytics. Like I said, I’m not expert in this field, but if I was shopping around for a web analytics package, I might not choose Google for this purpose (there are good reasons why one might not) but it would surely be my benchmark.

I particularly like the ability to establish goals and track conversion rates along paths that feed that goal. So if you have a website which sells products, you setup the sale of each product as a goal, then identify the paths people might take to get to the point where they actually buy the product. The reports will then tell you not only how many people achieve that goal, but where they fall off the path along the way. This would be very handy for evaluating potential usability problems with shopping cart processes etc. This is the most obvious use; the more complex your website is the more goals and paths you could monitor.

Hopefully, this will help some of you gain better intelligence, in that CIA kinda way, regarding what is happening with your website (or intranet for that matter). And this is just the tip of the iceberg, there are many more sources of data which you can use to find out what’s going on, and why. Web analytics just happen to be a good place to start.

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