In this case I think some of the findings will act as a surprise to the client and while I won't share those exact findings I will share what reports I ran and the reason why I think those reports are important. However, before I do that it's important to disclaimer that in looking at these numbers it's not the actual numbers themselves that are important, but rather what the numbers tell us. If you're trying to compare number pre-redesign to number port-redesign then sometimes you'll be comparing apples and oranges, instead look at the outcomes and trends of those numbers. Is your goal being achieved, and by goal is the information you feel is important reaching your customer efficiently?
Here are the analytic reports I ran and what they represent. I suggest running them at least for a 9 month period, one year is even better.
- All Pages (Behavior – Overview – full report/top 100): this report shows you the most popular pages by page hit and unique session. This indicates the top pages within the site of interest to the public regardless of intent by administration, meaning this is where people are finding value and usable information TODAY. If these items don’t line up to the clients initiatives and focus points then there is work to do on surfacing those items and bringing further awareness to them. Maybe those items are buried in deep links, maybe they aren’t ready content but rather in pdf or downloads, maybe they are deep slides in a deck that no one sits through. Whatever the case evaluate the worth of the content and find a way to bring focus to it WITHOUT hiding the information that user are accessing today.
- Landing Pages (Behavior – Site Content – Landing Pages): this report shows where people are first entering the site, this accounts for direct links from OTHER sites and bookmarks people have made. This can show areas of the site which SHOULD have emphasis put on their physical design and their content because these are the first “touch-points” for people into the site. Remember not everyone comes in through the front-door, sometimes they come in through the side door because it’s closer to the kitchen and their hungry.
- Technology Overview (Audience – Mobile – Overview): this report shows you the types of devices hitting your site at a high level. For the majority of sites you don’t really care about the ration of iphone to android users, but you do care if the majority are cell phone or desktop because it matters to how you structure and how much text you place on a page. Mobile viewers don’t want to scroll forever, they want clear navigation and less fluff than their desktop counterparts. Mobile visitors want their information more raw and easily searchable, remember their on the move and moving fast, they won’t wait for rotators, scrolling text, or bother to look for information buried within documents or PDF’s it has to be right at the surface.
- New vs Returning (Audience – Behavior – New vs Returning): this report shows you the number of NEW people coming to your site, these people haven’t seen your site before and so are new to it’s navigation, content and layout. If your site is too complex then they are likely to move on, if it’s not intuitive then their likely to miss interacting with an element or scroll right over it. Whereas returning customers may be overly familiar with your site and need to be shown or pointed out when/where information has changed. Often times they are accustomed to certain paths to data so if something changes you need to make allowances for these learned behaviors and accommodate for them so the user isn’t frustrated and lost when something does change.
As I mentioned these might not be the only things you look at and there's lots of more data you can go through, but if all you have is basic reporting then these might act as a starting point to direct your design work when looking at a potential redesign effort.
I'm always curious what others think so please comment what you look for and how you interpret analytics when evaluating a site.
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