An art director and designer by trade the idea of diving
into the ‘metrics’ of anything brings back dark memories of math homework. The
horror. So I stated this course
with some anxiety. However once I began digesting the content it became clear
that I was mistaken. Sure,
analytics is going to have a lot of numbers, but at its core gathering metrics
is the act of gathering data about the customer. Capturing key information
about their behavior, habits and how they engage with the campaign or site
design. Valuable information. The kind of data that can help a design improve
and the bottom line increase rapidly.
In week one the course lecture covered three key benefits to
web analytics:
· A company can
continually improve its Web site, making adjustments where needed. This
encourages visitors to stay longer while optimizing conversion rates (i.e.,
turning visitors into purchasing customers).
· Web analytics
facilitates the planning of marketing activities, the specification of
promising target markets/strategies and a reliable evaluation of them, making
Internet marketing less risky from a cost perspective.
· Web analytics
can be linked to other applications on a company’s server, creating an online
presence that is more customer-friendly while initiating relevant, successful
campaigns that generate customer acquisition, satisfaction and loyalty
The market is practically oversaturated with products that
capture this kind of data.
This issues are no longer should we collect it and can we
afford it but rather how much do we collect and how do we use the data to make
decisions. Things start to get tricky. Human interpretation plays a factor. The
overzealous creative director and underwhelming MBA marketing manager may read
the data differently. Who’s right? That is what makes this business so much
fun. The need for quantitative information is paramount to success but just as
equally as important is qualitative decision making, listening to your gut as
the data is filtered. Finding that balance can be a challenge but a fun one if
you have the right attitude and support. Unfortunatley designers tend to lean heavy into the ‘my gut
says your data stinks.” This is
mostly due to the fact they do not understand the value of the information.
In 2011 Smashing Magazine published an article titled How Metrics
Can Make You A Better Designer, by Laura Klien. She offers up a short but informative
list on why designers should consider metrics. Here are some of her key points:
1 - Metrics Tell You Where Design Is Needed Most – Bounce
rate problems, metrics can help you figure that out. Metrics can help ensure
business problems are solved.
2. Metrics Help You Track Real User Behavior – The better
you understand the user the better you can make the experience. Metrics will
never drive the design, but it will help inform the team on user experience,
the good and the bad.
3. Metrics Tell You Which Changes Are Most Effective – The
hard work is paying off, or maybe it’s not, but you will have a good idea
of why either way.
4. Metrics Give You The Freedom To Take Design Risks – The
“Pin it” button is alive and well today for this very reason.
Ok, so for all of my design friends who are reading this
with skepticism lets end this post with Kline’s final comments on metrics and
their role in design;
“Metrics can be an incredibly powerful tool, but they don’t
replace design or make it irrelevant. In the end, the designers are still the
ones making the decisions. They’re just making them with better information.”
There you have it. Designers should embrace this boom in accessible data and leverage it to make even better solutions.
In the coming weeks I am excited to dig into this process. I
have some reservations on how web metrics impact the larger integrated
marketing strategy campaign process. The collection of data sounds slow and
cumbersome. Advertising and marketing strategy is neither. So how do you insert
these tools without slowing things down. Looking forward to finding out.
Cheers!
References
Klien, Laura. (2011) How Metrics Can Make You A Better Designer. Retrieved on November 3rd, 2012 from
http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2011/09/20/how-metrics-can-make-you-a-better-designer/
P.I. Reed School
of Journalism, West Virginia University (2012). Lesson 1: Intro to Web Analytics. Retrieved on November 3rd, 2012, from www.ecampus.wvu.edu.
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