Web Analytics

Web Analytics: Building a Better End-User Experience.

Website analytics is how all web designers and SEO experts help grow and optimize the internet for the user at the other end of their computer. This is the collection of data from an end-user while using internet resources. The information gathered is used to help the web designer optimize website usage and design from a user-centric view. However, analytics are intended to be used productively and anonymously. Unfortunately, some large companies sell analytical data to other companies, which has given Web Analytics a bad reputation with the broader public. There are a few ways to gather information about how users utilize websites. One of those ways is with cookies or by tracking users by using the web server logs.

Know your audience

Everyone utilizes the internet in widely different ways, so the website’s design must be usable by the entire user base. Designing a great website means knowing your audience. Phone users and desktop users have different needs and capabilities. For example, mobile users need larger buttons, whereas desktop or laptop users could fit more data in a smaller area.

Receiving simple fields such as the browser or the operating system the user is using can significantly inform what the website designer should prioritize, either mobile-first or desktop-first development. As we move towards a mobile majority on the internet, the entire web design landscape will shift towards a mobile-friendly environment. According to Oberlo.com, the majority of web traffic on mobile devices occurred in November 2016 and has continued to increase yearly. A good website is designed by the end-users using web analytics.

Public Opinion

Web analytics can be used productively, although current events and large companies have changed public perceptions of web analytics. Many large companies, such as Amazon, Google, and Facebook, have been found to sell user data to other companies. Much of the user data sold was anonymous. However, some data has been used to track internet users and provide tailored content or advertisements. For example, a father noticed an ad from Target for his daughter. The ad was specifically tailored to someone who had just found out they were pregnant. Target analytics noticed trends in the daughter’s shopping patterns that led them to assume she was pregnant.

Although this was not an incident of tailored advertisements on the internet, every internet user has a story: “I was thinking about this, and suddenly it started showing up in advertisements.” The public perception of web analytics has even caused the European Union to create new laws that prohibit or highly limit the ability of websites to track user data for any purpose. Although an individual website administrator may not be planning to use their data for nefarious or illegal purposes, the data could be stolen by hackers and sold without the user’s or the administrator’s consent.

How Data is Gathered

There are many ways to capture website analytics, many of which can be done without the user’s knowledge. A few companies offer web analytics services that use more sophisticated internet-wide techniques to capture and gather data for individual web designers and their clients.

Metadata

The first and most common type of analytic data is the data your web browser sends to the website, even without you knowing. The data that is sent is straightforward. Most of the time, it’s information about what browser and operating system you use. Although this data is extensive, it can reveal the type of users (mobile or desktop) who are using your website.

Cookies

The second most common type of data used for analytic purposes is cookies. Cookies are small files that your browser stores and sends to websites for various purposes. Cookies can be used in web analytics to track a single user across your website. Some of the most common cookies track browsers during a session (GIF).

Cookies can also be used to track users outside of your website. Malicious cookies could gather information about your web browsing and return that data when you return to the origin website. These cookies are less common because most modern web browser developers know that type of misuse. For example, Google Chrome creates a new browser session for each tab.

IP Address

Lastly, IP address tracking is the most inaccurate, but impossible for an end-user to hide. When a user connects to a web server, they must send an HTTP request, including the return IP address for the request. Most web servers save the IP addresses that they send files to in their regular log files. Administrators who want to analyze a user’s session could watch the requests from a specific IP address. This method is highly inaccurate, especially if many users use the same IP address when connecting to the internet (large universities).

Google and Others

Although there are many ways for an individual website to track user data for analytics, many companies opt to pay a company like Google to handle their analytics. Google’s solution uses sophisticated methods to provide developers with the most accurate information. Other companies also offer similar services to Google’s analytics, but since Google owns over 95% of the internet search traffic, they can provide services that include search engine traffic.

User-Oriented Design

The next step for any web developer is an intuitive interface that users can use without prior experience or training. Your website should revolve around the user and their experience. This can be done by utilizing the tools and data to analyze how each user uses the website. Some methods and design philosophies support a user-oriented design. A few examples of web design principles can be found below.

Website Purpose

Everything has a purpose, and so should your website. Websites that cover a single subject or revolve around a specific topic or idea also serve a purpose. Straightforward websites tend to have higher retention and a better user experience.

F-Shaped Reading Pattern

Numerous eye-tracking studies and data from internet traffic have shown that humans tend to read in an F-shaped pattern. The F-shaped reading pattern philosophy utilizes a mix of images and headers to grab users ‘ attention to a specific section or subsection in a topic. Consider the Word document you are reading. This subsection catches your eye with the infographic (Source) on the left and pulls you into reading the body on the right. The inverse can also be done by utilizing catchy section headers.

Load Times

Having a website with numerous animations, high-resolution photos, and hundreds of scripts running on it may make it very visually appealing. However, slow loading times, especially for those with a slower internet connection, will turn potential visitors away. One way to reduce data downloads is not to resize images. When embedded into a website, images are downloaded at full resolution, and then the browser uses code to resize the image.

If possible, load times will become faster if you store the image resource in a compressed format and only resize it when necessary. Another way to lower load times is to utilize JavaScript when essential and load the scripts after the website has fully initialized.

All web design aims to create a user experience that guides a user without needing instruction or prompting. A good website, such as Google, makes its website simple and easy to comprehend, which has directly led to the success of its search engine. On the other hand, Bing has a much more complicated user experience, leading to more user frustration and a dwindling user base. Trust in web analytics has led to many companies adopting open privacy policies that allow users to have minimal control over how their data is used and sold.

If a new web analytics method comes along, all users must feel they are in control of their data. Unfortunately, many users distrust anything that starts to sound like tracking or internet data. Most users would rather not have their data sold, so enacting laws that ban data sales may be needed to build trust with users. If you create the best website globally, it will fail if an end-user doesn’t understand it.