Complete Beginner’s Guide to Analytics
What Are Analytics? The internet has changed drastically since it’s inception, and so has user behavior. Users have shifted from typing remembered URLs into the address bar to relying on search engines to find a site for them. A user will open and skim multiple tabs, rather than devoting full attention to one page. All of this complicates the metrics of a site or application: to measure success, an analyst cannot simply measure hits on the web server. They must measure human behavior. When gathering information, researchers employ both qualitative and quantitative methods. Qualitative data is gathered through user research: observing people to understand why they do certain things. Quantitative data is garnered through analytics: identifying what actions users take when they come to a page, and how many users take those actions. This quantitative data allows us to measure baselines, use those baselines to inform design decisions, and then measure the success or failure of ...