Practical Web Analytics for User Experience
1st Edition
How Analytics Can Help You Understand Your Users
Description
Practical Web Analytics for User Experience teaches you how to use web analytics to help answer the complicated questions facing UX professionals. Within this book, you'll find a quantitative approach for measuring a website's effectiveness and the methods for posing and answering specific questions about how users navigate a website. The book is organized according to the concerns UX practitioners face. Chapters are devoted to traffic, clickpath, and content use analysis, measuring the effectiveness of design changes, including A/B testing, building user profiles based on search habits, supporting usability test findings with reporting, and more. This is the must-have resource you need to start capitalizing on web analytics and analyze websites effectively.
Key Features
- Discover concrete information on how web analytics data support user research and user-centered design
- Learn how to frame questions in a way that lets you navigate through massive amounts of data to get the answer you need
- Learn how to gather information for personas, verify behavior found in usability testing, support heuristic evaluation with data, analyze keyword data, and understand how to communicate these findings with business stakeholders
Readership
UX professionals (UX designers, usability engineers, usability architects, usability researchers, UX managers)Secondary: Graduate level students in a human-computer interaction, usability, or related program.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter 1. Introduction
What is Web Analytics?
User Experience and Web Analytics Questions
Web Analytics and User Experience: A Perfect Fit
About This Book
Google Analytics
Part 1: Introduction to Web Analytics
Chapter 2. Web Analytics Approach
Introduction
Get To Know Your Website
A Model of Analysis
Showing Your Work
Context Matters
Sometimes the Data Contradict You
Key Takeaways
Chapter 3. How Web Analytics Works
Introduction
Log File Analysis
Page Tagging
Metrics and Dimensions
Interacting With Data in Google Analytics
Key Takeaways
Chapter 4. Goals
Introduction
What are Goals and Conversions?
Conversion Rate
Goal Reports in Google Analytics
When Do You Use These Reports?
Finding the Right Things to Measure as Key Performance Indicators
What Can You Measure On a Website That Can Constitute A Goal?
Going Beyond the Website
Tying It Together
Key Takeaways
Part 2: Learning about Users through Web Analytics
Chapter 5. Learning about Users
Introduction
Visitor Analysis
Key Takeaways
Chapter 6. Traffic Analysis: Learning How Users Got to Your Website
Introduction
Source and Medium (Dimensions)
Organic Search
Search Query Analysis
Referral Traffic
Direct Traffic
Paid Search Keywords
Key Takeaways
Chapter 7. Analyzing How People Use Your Content
Introduction
Website Content Reports
Key Takeaways
Chapter 8. Click-Path Analysis
Introduction
Focus on Relationships between Pages
Navigation Summary
“Visitors Flow” Report
Analyzing How Users Move from One Page Type to Another
Key Takeaways
Chapter 9. Segmentation
Introduction
Why Segment Data?
How To Segment Data
What are the Ways You Can Segment Data?
Useful Ways To Segment For UX Questions
The Tip of the Iceberg
Key Takeaways
Chapter 10. Pairing Analytics Data with UX Methods
Introduction
Personas
Usability Testing
Usability Inspection
Design and Design Objectives
Key Takeaways
Chapter 11. Measuring the Effects of Changes
Introduction
Choose What to Measure
Types of Changes
Changing Many Things at Once
Reporting
Key Takeaways
Part 3: Advanced Topics
Chapter 12. Measuring Behavior within Pages
Introduction
Google Analytics In-Page Analytics
Click Analytics Tools
Making Clicks Measureable in Page Tagging Analytics Tools
Analyzing Event Data
Virtual Pageviews
Key Takeaways
Chapter 13. A/B Testing
Introduction
Designing An Experiment
Monitoring and “Winning”
Key Takeaways
Chapter 14. Analytics Profiles
Introduction
Profiles
What are Profile Filters?
Key Takeaways
Chapter 15. Regular Reporting and Talking to Stakeholders
Introduction
Reporting Culture
Making the Case for Usability Activities
Key Takeaways
Chapter 16. Web Analytics in the Near Future
Introduction
Mobile Application Analytics
Cross-Device Measurement
Better Measurement of On-Page Behavior
Connecting to Other Data Sources
The Continuing Dominance of Google
Things Will Keep Changing
Index
Details
- No. of pages:
- 256
- Language:
- English
- Copyright:
- © Morgan Kaufmann 2013
- Published:
- 13th August 2013
- Imprint:
- Morgan Kaufmann
- eBook ISBN:
- 9780124046948
- Paperback ISBN:
- 9780124046191
About the Author
Michael Beasley
Michael Beasley is a user experience designer at ITHAKA and has eight years of experience in usability testing, user interface design, and web analytics. Previously, he was the measurement team lead at Pure Visibility, where he fused web analytics with traditional user experience activities to better answer clients' questions about their customers. Mike earned his MSI degree in human-computer interaction at the University of Michigan School of Information and was active for several years on the board of the Michigan chapter of the User Experience Professionals' Association. Mike has written articles for User Experience magazine and has given talks and workshops on web analytics geared toward user experience professionals.
Affiliations and Expertise
is the user experience team lead at Pure Visibility, an Internet marketing firm in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.
Reviews
"…the book is [a] manual, albeit an excellent constructed manual, for anyone looking to learn about Google Analytics… The book in turn will help you learn how to use Web Analytics data… All in all a good book to have, especially if you are a freelancer looking to expand his/her service portfolio."--Actual Insights blog, October 26, 2013
"User experience designer Beasley explains to fellow practitioners how they can add web analytics to their tool kit and have an additional source of data about users."--Reference & Research Book News, October 2013