Using Analytics for Design Decisions

Web analytics is usually left to marketers looking to fine-tune shopping carts, hone in on AdWords, track campaigns, and conduct a whole bevy of marketing tasks. Creative-types and IA folks don’t always dive into this kind of data. But when a site is undergoing a creative or architectural facelift, it is the perfect time to dive into analytics and make the right decisions.

Creative Decisions:

Analytics packages can tell you a lot about the technology your audience uses. Some stats worth looking at include:

• Resolution;
• Browser;
• Flash Version;
• Java.

Are 75% of your users at 1024×768? Then maybe it’s time to break out of that limiting 800×600 design. Do 30% of your users still in IE6? Avoid transparent images. 5% of your users don’t have Flash or Java? Make sure you offer alternatives to that nifty Slideshow on the homepage (which you should do anyway, but that is another post for another day).

IA Decisions

What do you think is your most popular page (after the homepage)? Are you sure? Looking at your analytics may surprise you. If they do, then take a closer look at your popular pages.  Use your analytics to figure out how it got so high, and learn about how you can bring up your most important pages. Something as simple as the order of navigation can make significant changes in your top content reports.

Usability Decisions

What brings people to your site? What keeps them there? You can get a lot of this information by looking at the following:

• The keywords that bring people to your site;
• The keywords that keep people there;
• The keywords that drive people away;
• The words users enter when they conduct a site search;
• The page a user is on when they conduct a search.

Do you have a high bounce rates among users who search for “scholarships” on your site? Maybe your scholarships page is difficult to maneuver. Do a lot of visitors use the “search” function when they are on your Get Involved page? Then maybe your Get Involved Page doesn’t have the content most users would expect. This kind of data gives you insights of dozens of user interviews. Use it to transform your site’s design and information architecture in a way that your users are able to find exactly what they need.