Thinking bigger, past the limitations of Web Analytics

Categories: User Experience, Web Analytics, Web TheoryPosted on July 26th, 2007

I’ve many friends that are in the web analytics space, in fact, I’ve interviewed many of the top names in that industry on my show. Web Analytics has it’s place, it’s important, and it’s only going to increase in value. Web Analytics is great for understanding what’s happened on the server in the past. The rest is inferences and educated guesses.

[Relying on Web Analytics ONLY for web decision making is the same as driving on the freeway, but only looking backwards]

The limits of Web Analytics
Web Analytics can’t tell us, why did someone come to our site, what they want to accomplish, what their emotional experience was like, what their eyes actually looked at, and what they told others later. But we’ve got to stop ourselves and realize that it’s only ONE form of understanding the direction of a website. In addition to using Web Analytics, the serious Web Strategist will be using other methods and processes to understand what users have done, and what they want.

A partial list of understanding users
While Web Analytics is important, there are many other methods that should be done to find out what users want:

-User testing
-Surveys
-Heuristic Evaluations
-Ethnography
-Search Logs
-Social Media listening (on other sites)
-And most important: just ask them (interviews)

Many other ways to understand users
This is not a comprehensive list by any means, as there are complete industries devoted to User Experience (UX), Human Computer Interaction (HCI), User Interface Design (UI), and Information Architecture (IA). The newest group to the bunch? Social Media Measurement, which measures what is said or gestured by who, when, and where. It’s assumed that the web user experience has spread off the website, so start planning accordingly. Web Analytics is limited in that it only measures the activity on your corporate site –not other areas where customers may be talking.

The User and Customer Experience has moved off your website
What are some other examples that your website has moved off your domain? There’s a list of third party extranets (yes, this impacts YOUR customer support site) and my theory that Web Marketing is not limited to two domains (your website and google search results).

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 at 6:46 am and is filed under User Experience, Web Analytics, Web Theory. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Comments

Marco Bandini

Thank you for the cold shower!

I agree with you all, and I would like to make you a couple of questions: do you think that Web Analytics have, in some way, changed other research methods? Or the expectations that clients have on their results?

Should we use them to track offline behaviours and attitudes (as Tom writes) in a more sistemathic way? Which and how offline can be tracked on-line?
(hope it makes sense)

Any readings to suggest me?

Patrick Ludolph

Yes Jeremiah, you are totally right, but there are so many companies around which even did not get the basics. Espacially in Germany the really big companies are far away from the limits of web analytics. Typically a web site is launched and nobody cares for it until a big relaunch where nobody has learned anything from the old mistakes and is happy to make a lot of new.

Cheers
Patrick

Tom Kasperski

From a CPG perspective, AC Nielsen's Homescan consumer panel is one of the few methods that can connect interactive media consumption with offline purchase behavior.

Online tools: Web analytics, surveys, or social media listening can be useful, but aren't compelling enough to convince many brand managers and CMOs that interactive media is effective. Metrics that make a direct connection between online behavior and offline behavior are the most valuable tools of all.

jeremiah_owyang

Bingo, you get it Adam. It's important to see where we've gone, but there's a lot more happening on the other three windows of the car.

Adam Snider

Great post Jeremiah. I love the analogy about driving on the freeway and only looking backward.

Web Analytics definitely doesn't provide all the answers. It provides valuable information and clues, which then need to be combined with other methods of understand users in order to make educated guesses about the future.