Web Analytics

One of the things I wish my colleagues knew more about was Web analytics. We've ceded this important facet of usability to the marketing folks, and we need to get a piece of it back.

Web analytics is the ability to get constant data on where users have been in your website, what they looked at, where they came from, what they bought, how long they lingered, and so forth. Much of this stuff used to be in log files, but they proved to be too feeble for prediction. Current analytics packages have much more functionality than log files ever did. For example, in WebTrends I can see what proportion of users went in one of several directions from the main page, and where they went after that, and after that. I can see what keywords they used in searches, both on the site and in search engine queries to find the site.

Web analytics has become the province of marketing departments everywhere, but often they don't know how to use the data for usability or IA purposes. We do, but most of us never look at the data, or don't know what to do with it when we do. When you can see clickpaths through your site, you can begin to optimize your navigational structure. You can gradually make the site better. If you're using a WA package now, I'd suggest you start mining it for every bit of gold you can find.