Below are a free form list of my notes from the evening:

AHS site redesign background: Online adoptions were the most frequently visited part of the site

Analytics on the site:

what the move viewed content on the site is (how many times each page is called)

adoption page is more highly viewed than the home page

URL’s that make sense are good for analytics team

Unique pageviews – suggests that a number of people are hitting each page

Bounce rate – a number of people that view that page when they leave the site

Bounce rate of 18% is low, under 30% is good

Bounce rates are really good indicators of whether or not your site is providing people what they’re looking for

Look at how long people are spending on your site

5-second test also helps understand

BOUNCE RATE IS A REALLY INSIGHTFUL METRIC

You can exclude traffic from an IP address so you’re only looking at external visitors, not tracking from within your company

Google Analytics has trouble with flash – it can be done, but it’s a development effort, it can record them as page views if programmed that way

If it’s not a page load, it needs to be programmed separately

Interesting to look at pre-redesign and redesign

Bounce rate went down, which could be OK because people might now be finding information faster

Search analytics

Google Analytics has been free for 3-4 years

Analytics is much less about absolute numbers and much more about TRENDING, all tools will have slightly different numbers, but the trends will look the same

Segment traffic based on new or returning visitor, where they came from (search engine, paid ad, referring website), segment by search queries and track what they did across the website – can create user profiles with that

Pull data into analytics and segment based on data that’s been tagged by audience

Large number of users are not entering via home page

What is a representational timespan?  It depends on the business.  Ecommerce business YOY, if trying to build traffic, might look quarter over quarter

WHEN DOING A REDESIGN, MIGHT LOOK OVER THE PAST FEW MONTHS

LOOK AT SEARCH RESULTS THAT RETURN NO SEARCHES IF YOU’RE GROWING CONTENT

KPI’s: Must be an actionable metric

Building dashboard for clients that show KPI’s, and honing in on most important metrics to their business

4 metrics for ecommerce, traffic, conversion rate, average order value – if any is moving, you want to know that

It’s very important to stay focused on business objectives

Google Analytics – can create a custom segment and pull data in that way

2/3 of traffic is returning visitors – a lot of loyalty with AHS

Can compare new users with returning visitors

Can also see the window between user visits

60-70% of your traffic coming from search engines is common, assuming the site is optimized

80% of all site visits are from paid or organic search, so if  yours is much lower, that’s a good sign to invest in SEO

Direct traffic is a good measure of brand awareness (also means someone typed the URL, bookmarked it)

Time on site is really tricky

Session associated with each web visit – sessions usually set up 30-60 minutes, if you’re inactive it may stop your session

If you leave open a tab and go back to it a while later, doesn’t measure it if the session has been closed

What browsers people are using, what OS, connection speed, device, screen resolutions

Can tweak the results to show up in google how you want to – it’s a google tool (Google Webmaster Tools)

Google is not as good at clickpath analysis – doesn’t give you in-depth tracking

Exit rates are good to see, especially if you have a long form or an order checkout process across multiple pages – you specify which path they should take

WHERE IS THE HIGHEST FALLOUT RATE?

Industry average is 40% for getting through a shopping cart order pages

Hotels.com – analytics and epinions labs teamed up and used Tea Leaf to learn little tweak to the site

Google Analytics usually doesn’t slow down a site because the tag is at the end of the page and is highly cached

Other services can slow down your site

Goals – Google lets you set up 4 goals – typically ecommerce site is buy something, sign up for emails – it’s all about conversion activity – you want to get as close to conversion as possible

GOALS ARE AS CLOSE TO THE END CONVERSION AS YOU CAN GET

With goals, can see what pages are contributing most to people converting – what content is generating the actions you want people to take

BUILD DATA IN PROCESS

IT’S A GOOD IDEA FOR PRACTITIONERS TO GET A LOGIN TO THEIR WEB ANALYTICS PROGRAMS, not just reports

“Web Analytics Demystified” by Eric Peterson

• Time: 6:00-8:00 pm
• Date: Monday, April 13
• Location: Wilde Roast
  • 518 Hennepin Ave. E. (Corner of Hennepin and Central Avenues in Northeast Minneapolis)
    • Web: http://www.wilderoastcafe.com/
    • Phone: 612-331-4544
  • Ask the host for the book club (we’ll also put up a “UX Book Club” table tent)

And, visit http://mnteractive.com/ for post-meeting recaps and postings of these announcements.

Can’t wait to see you there!

Your Twin Cities UX Meetup organizers,

Kristi Olson
Stephanie Hammes-Betti
Garrick Van Buren
Jennifer Bohmbach

P.S.  The next UX Meetup is March 9, 6-8pm at Wilde Roast.  Andrew Janis from Evantage Consulting will come talk with us as we discuss Analytics and UX.

Our next UX Meetup is March 9, 6-8pm at Wilde Roast.  Come join us to learn from Andrew Janis of Evantage Consulting how to use web analytics to learn about our user’s experience.  He’ll review the Animal Humane Society website (http://www.animalhumanesociety.org) using Google Analytics to give us a glimpse into their UX.

And, everyone who attends gets a chance to win a $50 gift card for the Wilde Roast!  Thank you to Evantage Consulting for sponsoring this event!!

Please note, as usual this event is not a full presentation, but primarily an open conversation amongst everyone.  Our topic expert will provide a brief introduction to the topic and then provide expert insight throughout our conversations.  Bring your questions and/or experiences to share.  Everyone is welcome.

Here are details about the venue and logistics:

• Time: 6:00-8:00 pm
• Date: Monday, March 9, 2009
• Location: Wilde Roast
  • 518 Hennepin Ave. E. (Corner of Hennepin and Central Avenues in Northeast Minneapolis)
    • Web: http://www.wilderoastcafe.com/
    • Phone: 612-331-4544
  • Ask the host to point you to the reserved room (we’ll be easy to spot)

Can’t wait to see you there!

Your Twin Cities UX Meetup organizers:

Kristi Olson
Stephanie Hammes-Betti
Jennifer Bohmbach
Garrick Van Buren

The March meetup is sponsored by Ten Seven Interactive makers of the Periscope Gadget that connects Basecamp & Highrise to GMail & iGoogle.

Interested in sponsoring a MNteractive meetup? Just a leave a comment.

P.S. Please note that the UX Meetup recently had a face-lift.  We are now meeting the 2nd Monday of the month between 6-8pm at Wilde Roast, so mark your calendars.  The UX Meetup and UX Book Club are offered on alternating months.

For additional optional reading, check out these sites:

Here are additional details about the venue and logistics:

Can’t wait to see you there!

Next month we have a slight twist to our meetups — Lynn Smith, local IA/IxD pro, will be presenting a demo of a very creative, non-facilitated “discount” usability test/heuristic evaluation, followed by open discussion about the methodology used, its rigor and validity — basically, “Is this a good way to gather feedback?” Lynn and her partners created an Axure prototype, sent out an email survey to 3 distinct audiences — UX practitioners, friends familiar with Zamby, and others not familiar with Zamby — and used the data to iterate the design and get another round of feedback. It was CHEAP and RAPID usability test at its best.

I anticipate a VERY lively, dynamic and rich discussion! Come share your thoughts and questions, and be prepared to be inspired!

Here are details of the meeting:

If you have questions, please feel free to contact either myself or Garrick (email@garrickvanburen.com).

Happy December!

Kristi Olson

http://www.kolson7.com

We were welcomed by a student soon to be looking for a job in the field of IA, so we spent a little time discussing “What is IA”?  Here are some notes from that discussion:

“What is IA?”

• Where things go and what they’re called
• IA’s use research to make recommendations
• IA’s also advocate for standard web conventions (there are only a few conventions – always have a home button, clickable logo, back button goes back)
• IA started with librarians
• Librarians will teach you the system to the library (like the Dewey Decimal System) – on the web, there is no one to help – thus our job is to design systems where people won’t need help
• People have goals, but the goal is never to use the site – it has to do with the use of the product (we need to get out of the way as much as possible)
• Business value of UX design: goal is to get people to give you money (it’s a competitive advantage)
• Outstanding question: Thermostats – are they usable?

Axure

• “Thou shalt not change production code”  this is a tool for designers to play around and practice
• Axure is the designers sandbox
• Prototype is a communication tool to the developers
• DO NOT USE PROTOTYPE FOR PRODUCTION CODE
• Design in code slows everybody down, because everyone wants to be a designer
• Easier to be quicker on your feet, more flexible to have a flexible design
• Changing flash is a big deal, changing a prototype is not a big deal
• Axure creates “Wireframes that move”
• We are not developers, Axure makes me do things I couldn’t do and without making code
• Use Axure for a POC (proof of concept) test – we learned that this isn’t the way everyone wants to search
• Really important to do the test plan first before building the prototype
• Axure prototypes help build confidence that you’ll release with usable functionality
• Axure style editor allows you to change font, background color, headers across the prototype, like CSS to a website
• When adding functionality for a current system, good to use a high visual and high interactive fidelity prototype so that users can still visualize the current system with the new functionality
• Good for user testing, getting feedback
• Also great for communicating with developers
• “Designed by developers for designers”
• Wireframing, prototyping and documentation in one tool
• $589 for a license, includes 1 year of free updates ($150 after that to keep up with updates – 2 releases per year)
• Keep things black and white to prevent people from using the prototype as the final product
• Testing before the design and after the design to make sure things are interpreted correctly when you handed off the design
• Slap and map – slapping up a design and a sitemap to use to display functionality — adds higher visual fidelity
• In-line frame would import html file that has the swf embed file – for clicking around, you’d need to code the swf file to have that functionality
• Don’t add a ton of flash

If you have questions, please feel free to contact either myself or Garrick (email@garrickvanburen.com).

I look forward to seeing/meeting you!

Kristi Olson
Minneapolis UX Strategist

Look for Lori Baker and the “UX Meetup” table sign
Check the patio if the weather is nice

Hello UX folks –

The next Twin Cities UX Meetup group will meet July 1 at the Monte Carlo. The topic will be “What’s interesting to you about UX these days?”. Come enjoy some delicious Monte Carlo cocktails and chat it up with your local peers!

Look for Garrick, in the patio if the weather is nice
If you have questions, throw them in the comments.