Use data to make better decisions and improve user experience. Dive into qualitative and quantitative data, heatmaps, split testing, session recording, event and goal tracking, plus lots more to get granular insights into how users are navigating your website or app.

Researching UX: Analytics

Preface

Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion. — W Edwards Demming 

Why Analytics?

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. — Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes 

Getting Set Up

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. — Albert Einstein, Physicist 

An Introduction to Analyzing Data

The goal is to turn data into information, and information into insight. — Carly Fiorina, Former CEO of HP 

Finding Problems with Analytics

The price of light is less than the cost of darkness. —Arthur C. Nielsen, Founder of ACNielsen 

Analytics for User Research

The greatest value of a picture is when it forces us to notice what we never expected to see. — John Tukey, American Mathematician 

Measuring and Reporting Outcomes

Annotation a comment on a graph about an incident that may have had a big impact on your data. Benchmarking reports a way to compare your stats to those of your peers. Bounce a session with only one page view. Cohort set of users sharing a characteristic and time frame. Content Group a data set segregated by URL, screen name, page title etc. Conversion when a user completes a goal. Custom Report a report based on dimensions and metrics that you specifically choose. Dashboard a custom page showing a number of widgets. Demographics in Google Analytics, demographics reports contain data on the age and gender of your users. Dimension the name of a metric, normally the first column in a report table. Entrance the first page view of a session. Event something that happens on a website but triggers no HTTP request (such as a view of an embedded video). Exit when someone leaves your site. Exit Rate or Exit % percentage of exits from a specific page or pages. Filter exclude data (such as requests from your IP address) at the point of collection. Funnel a visualization of a path taken by visitors as they complete goals or conversions. Goal a form of conversion, fired and recorded in Google Analytics when a user completes a predefined behavior. Landing Page the page on which a visitor enters your site. Metric data collected by Google Analytics; the numbers that appear in reports next to Dimensions. New visitor a user that has visited your site once during a specified time period. Page Value the monetary value of a page as calculated by Google Analytics (for example, Transaction Revenue ÷ Unique page views in ecommerce). Pages per session the mean number of webpages viewed during your sessions. Pageview when an HTML page is accessed. Remarketing showing people adverts for the site they’ve recently exited. Returning visitor a visitor who has made at least one visit to at least one page on your site previously in the set time period. Segment data from a group of users who share some attributes. Session the period during which someone actively engages with your site, aka a “visit”. Site Search internal site search, a feature allowing users to submit a search query. Unique Pageviews the number of sessions that included a visit to a page. Unique Visitor someone who goes to your site, aka a “user”. Visit a previously used term for a Session. Visitors flow the visitors flow report shows how users have navigated through your site. Weighted sort a way of prioritizing data by importance instead of numerical order. Widgets small snapshots of data (shown as tables, graphs etc.) that make up a dashboard. 

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