1 / 19

Web Stats Revisited

Web Stats Revisited. New Tools to Track Usage Phil Dickerson NAQC 2009. Find out what people have been doing on your web site Phil Dickerson, US EPA. Oh so 2005 …. The plot. Desperate air quality information seekers converge on AIRNow.gov Will they find the information they need?

ciel
Download Presentation

Web Stats Revisited

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Web Stats Revisited New Tools to Track Usage Phil Dickerson NAQC 2009

  2. Find out what people have been doing on your web site Phil Dickerson, US EPA Oh so 2005…

  3. The plot • Desperate air quality information seekers converge on AIRNow.gov • Will they find the information they need? • Do we really know what they want? • How can we peek from behind the curtains of AIRNow and see what they’re up to? • Can we keep AIRNow from being pulled from the fall lineup?

  4. The way we do website design, today users

  5. Web Analytics to the Rescue • Back in 2005, I sang the virtues of “web log analysis” • Analysis is all grown up now and has become analytics • Analytics comes at the problem from a different direction • Analysis was after the fact, using logs that recorded actions after they occurred • Analytics allows us to capture actions as they occur, and the snippets can access more transaction data

  6. An analogy. . . • Imagine a hardware store . . . • Web log analysis would be like taking inventory at the end of the month – how many bolts, nails, and plungers were sold • Web analytics would be like following the customer around the store – observing what he or she looked at AND what they bought, as well as how long they took to find what they needed.

  7. What Analytics Can Tell Us • Analytics uses a “code snippet” that invisibly triggers each time a page is viewed. In addition to the “usual stuff”, i.e. domain, referring site, search terms, etc., analytics gets: • Where on the screen the click happened! • Time elapsed between clicks • The users’ window size • Much, much, more…

  8. OK, Phil, I’m ready to order! • But wait just a minute, there’s more! • There are free, yes FREE, analytics packages, i.e. Google Analytics • The AIRNow team has purchased a product called “Crazy Egg” • I will demo the reports momentarily

  9. My epiphany. . . • The very first time we ran a Crazy Egg report we saw: • Hot spots on the Outlook Map around North Carolina • During the June fire event! • Users must have been trying to get info on NC air quality

  10. What we saw…

  11. What the user got…

  12. Live Demonstration • http://airnow-reports.reportsection.com/

  13. So, practically, what can we do? • The AIRNow website redesign feedback loop • While not directly involving users, analytics represent them • The roles remain the same, but we have better information to drive the process

  14. Wrapping up… • Analytics packages bring new possibilities • The feedback loop for web design • Better click experience, fewer desperate mouseclicks • Ability to “test” our design theories – did we really drive the users to the products? • More efficient use of dwindling IT resources • Knowing more about the customers’ habits without actually surveying them

  15. What you can do • Ask your IT folks about analytics and encourage them to take a look • Adopt a web-design feedback loop methodology • As AIRNow partners, use our reports to see how we are driving your constituents • Perhaps do a few pilot projects? • Prevent your users from suffering “Desperate Mouseclicks”

More Related