OK I know it’s rather a boring subject for the majority of us out there, but analytics really do help everyone. Sure the client wants pretty graphs, the marketing department need to know if there current “push” is converting, and management love all those acronyms such as ROI, SEO, SEM BLAH BLAH BLAH – but for a designer what does it me to us? Well for one it proves wether or not your design works or falls flat on its face. Being able to see what clicks were made can tell you a great deal on your design, and you can take this information and use it to help either improve that current design, or take with you to the next client.

Reading the stats is one thing, and surely something for another (long) post, but in the real world taking away all the fluff, bells and whistles, we can see immediately if once a visitor lands on your home page if they are then dropping off the radar – a sure sign that they either A – came here for the wrong reason, B – came here and didn’t see what they wanted immediately, or C – came here, saw the interface, couldn’t work out where to press to get to what they wanted, and moved on.

With the exception of reason A we can start to learn some things. Large corporations and advertising / marketing companies use focus groups for these kind of studies, but really it’s not needed at all. We all have a friend (or two), relative or even spouse and child (all of which I have used myself) for testing new site designs – simply sit them down, stand over their shoulder and ask them to do a simple task – “ok so here is a new site I’m developing for a company that sells widgets – can you please attempt to purchase one for me” – do not let them ask you a question, don’t offer advise, just watch and take some notes, you will be amazed at some of the results – I guarantee it.

Create a simple questionnaire for them to complete on paper for you with simple direct questions such as, “how do you rate the usability of the site”, “what did you think about the overall design”, “would you use this site”, “am I awesome” etc. Collectively this information, once studied, will no-doubt improve the site, before it gets to your client by 30 – 50%, and you can now boast some facts and figures to your client with regard to “focus group testing”.

The process is quick and priceless, but sometimes demoralizing. We all like to think we know what we are doing, heck I’ve designed sites for 10 years but constantly I have to learn, improve and push to make the interface and browsing experience the best it can be. So, once we have run our mini focus group testing and refined things to the best of our knowledge and ability, we can then switch our focus to the analytics of the site, you know, the boring stuff.

Analytics are rather like a focus group we cannot see, but yet we receive feedback just as valuable as if they were in the same room. Look for the entry points on your website, sometimes you can find that a large portion of your traffic do not hit your home page first, and that means that the first impression they have is of that page you spent 20 minutes creating because you spent 6 days on the home page – time to refresh that “landing” page possibly. Look for your referrals, see where they are coming from, if 90% are coming from google and hitting that one page, two categories down, you may want to try and target that audience with something specific to the search that led them there.

Overall analytics are not just for the white collars, us jean wearing “designer types” can make use of them and here is a short list for you of some useful applications to help you become friends with facts, figures and graphs.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is an excellent tool to use with it’s flexible customization – slice it and dice it exactly (or near enough) how you want it.  Offering a host of resources and information – Google Analytics also offers some workshops through their blog and research studies.  It’s one of the best analytical tools out there, especially at the price – free.

SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is another free handy dandy little tool.  SurveyMonkey provides a very easy way of sending out surveys to gather results of how customers  feel about your company or your site.  With templates to choose from or even creating your own survey – you have the ability to add your logo and either email your survey or create a custom link while analyzing real-time results that can easily be converted into charts, graphs or even .pdf’s.

Userfly

Userfly is free for the basic package.  You have the ability to watch videos of your real users.  You can see every mouse movement and click.  It installs within seconds with just 1 line of code.  There are many different plans, both free and paid for, although for quick testing the free account proves invaluable.

Crazy Egg

If you don’t mind paying a small fee of $9/month.  Crazy Egg is the way to go.  Other tools will tell you what links your visitor’s click, but Crazy Egg will tell you which parts of the pages your visitors clicked on.  Displayed as a “heat map” – Crazy Egg will even show you what visitor’s clicked that isn’t a link, but maybe it should be.  At a glance – you can see which parts of the page are getting the most attention.  If, for example, you have several pages that have a link that leads to the same page – Crazy Egg can tell you which one of those pages drove the most traffic to your desired page.

ClickTale

ClickTale is more of an “in-page” web stats solution.  Telling you things such as how far a users scrolled down a particular page.  Want to see if they get bored with the story – how far they made it through your story, is the tag line getting their attention – but the content isn’t keeping their interest?  You will be able to watch movies of your visitor’s screens, study how people are interacting with your forms.  ClickTale provides several packages ranging from free to $790 p/month.

Is there some other tools out there that you would like to share with us?  Post your comments and suggestion below please!

Happy analyzing!