Description:

Analysis of online activity (analytics) has growing attention in the work of user experience design. How do we know when our findings are actionable answers and when they serve as refined questions begging for further exploration through qualitative user research? Can you really learn about your users through analytics?

This session will demystify web analytics, addressing common misconceptions. Through tips and examples of tactical applications of free tools and web analytics data in a ‘UX friendly’ context, this session will show that analytics can be an efficient tool for gaining rapid insight into user behavior and improving the value of our designs. We will explore ways to recognize findings that demand further investigation.

By incorporating web analytics into our projects we gain the ability to iterate rapidly and with more precision, resulting in increased satisfaction for both our clients and their users. The session will illustrate ways analytics data can be brought into play with familiar user experience techniques and provide examples of how metrics extend the life of our user research and demonstrate return on investment. Personas help drive search analysis, audience targeting drives useful segmentation, internal search data informs content strategy, and suggested metrics support project closure. We will demonstrate useful tools and show how easy it can be to access the data you need. Join in as we hear business goals from the audience and generate metrics and insightful data on the spot.