In October 2008, the Web Services Steering Committee at the University of Minnesota Libraries created the Discoverability exploratory subgroup, charged to recommend ways to make relevant resources more visible and easier to find, particularly within the user’s workflow. This report shares the findings of Phase 1, in which the primary activity was data‐gathering and analysis. Phase 2 of the group’s work will take the discovery principles identified here and recommend specific strategies for the future. The report consists of four main sections. The first section is a brief description of the process and methodology. The second is a discussion of five key trends related to discovery that were identified in the literature, including a description of how each trend is reflected in current use of local systems. The third section contains a set of suggested principles to guide future decisions related to discovery. Finally, we have collected and analyzed usage data from many ....
The OU Library website has been running Google Analytics for ages, but from what I can tell they haven’t done a hug amount with the results in terms of making the analytics actionable and using them to improve the site design (I’d love for someone to correct me with a blog post or two about how analytics have been used to improve site performance. If anyone would like to publish such a post, I’ll happily give you a guest slot here on OUseful.info…:-)
"The Google Analytics team announced the release of seven features today. The next stage in the metamorphosis of the popular web analytics tool. Without a doubt the feature that I am most excited about is Advanced Segmentation. This has been a long time coming (can you sense my pushiness!), and in this post I wanted to share with you all how to use this awesome feature." Without a doubt the feature that I am most excited about is Advanced Segmentation. This has been a long time coming (can you sense my pushiness!), and in this post I wanted to share with you all how to use this awesome feature.
"Server log files are inappropriate for gathering usability data. They are meant to provide server administrators with data about the behavior of the server, not the behavior of the user. The log file is a flat file containing technical information about requests for files on the server. Log file analysis tools merely assemble them in a conjecture-based format aimed at providing insight into user behavior. In the commentary below, I will explain why the nature of the web, the HTTP Protocol, the browser, and human behavior make it impossible to derive meaningful usability data from server logs."