June Dershewitz on Web Analytics

The Evolution of SFGate (and Thoughts on Measuring Site Redesign)

Like many San Franciscans I read SFGate every single day.  A cup of coffee, my local news fix, and then I'm ready to face the world.  But when I reached for the paper earlier this week my routine was derailed - the home page had undergone a major redesign.

After a reluctant attempt to embrace the new look I thought, "Gee, seems like SFGate has been the same forever.  Has it really changed that much?"  So I visited the Wayback Machine, dug out old copies of SFGate, and made this timeline of the site's evolution:

Here's a close-up of last year versus current:

Conclusion: Until this latest redesign the SFGate home page had remained virtually unchanged since 2002.

To the design team's credit they are doing a fantastic job of accepting feedback and addressing questions in the wake of the redesign.  As of this writing there are 164 public comments about the redesign; some are amusing but snarky critiques ("Annoying, busy, fluffy and broken..."), others make useful observations ("The new page crashes Internet Explorer on my smartphone...").  The comments are worth browsing both as a consumer and as a web analytics professional.

My relationship with SFGate is simply as a consumer; I know nothing of their corporate approach to web measurement.  And yet I can't help but wonder how they are measuring redesign effectiveness.  Or, for that matter, how any of us are measuring redesign effectiveness whenever we do redesigns.

I am full of questions:

• Did the design team do any multivariate or A/B testing? 
• If not, was it a conscious decision or just the path of least resistance?
  
• Do they have a plan in place for measuring the impact of redesign on visitor behavior (and ultimately, on the bottom line)? 
• Was measurement baked into the redesign project plan or was it more of an afterthought? 
• Were web analysts involved early on, and if so, in what capacity?

I want to know!

I believe, as an industry, we are now more inclined to consider measurement as a valid and necessary part of redesign than we were a few years ago.  But I still think we've got some evolving to do. 

Just the other day, by way of Future Now's Bryan Eisenberg, I read that 76.7% of internet retailers do not do multivariate or A/B testing.  And that's just retail, arguably the most evolved of web verticals!  What about the rest of us?  Are we making the most of site redesign measurement, or is there still room for improvement?

As always I'd love your feedback.

[I have written about the site redesign measurement process before: here are 3 ways you can prepare for site redesign measurement.]

Newbie Web Analyst Article

If you are new to web analytics - or if you are just thinking about entering the field - then you should check out this article I wrote for the Web Analytics Association: Top 10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started in Web Analytics.

Even though it's tagged as "funny" I think it's a good, serious read.

Movie Review: Untraceable

Last week San Francisco Web Analytics Wednesday took a trip to the movies.  Just how often do we get to see a blockbuster film about web analytics?  Well, if Untraceable is the best Hollywood can do, let's hope it never happens again.

Fact: 60% of all Untraceable audience members were Web Analytics Wednesday attendees, but only because our theater was nearly empty.  At least this made it easier for us to heckle without worrying that we were disrupting anyone else's experience.

Setting:  Scenic Portland, Oregon.  Familiar territory for me because I grew up there, it's also the noted home base of WebTrends and Web Analytics Demystified.  The only office shown in the movie, however, was the FBI's cybercrime unit.  In terms of product placement, the good guys were using Windows, the bad guy didn't use any recognizable software.  FBI bookshelves contained only plain white binders, none of the web analytics books we know and love. 

Gore: A sick and twisted individual builds torture contraptions to kill his victims by way of a web site.  The more viewers he gets watching the live webcam, the faster his victims die.  He's even thoughtful enough to install an LCD readout in the torture chamber in order to track real-time viewership.  As news spreads, the killer's site grows in popularity and the carnage accelerates; it's word-of-mouth marketing gone very, very wrong.  Nasty bloody scenes feature high-wattage light bulbs, battery acid and one very sharp rototiller.  I hid behind my popcorn bag the whole time.

Plot: Completely transparent!  One astute viewer among us correctly guessed the whole plot halfway through the movie.  A title like "Untraceable" would suggest the bad guy had a knack for covering his tracks, which he did, but there were still some major holes in the plot.  We spent the entire show devising ways to isolate the perp based on his actions.

Bottom line: Worth Netflixing, I suppose, if you can tolerate a serious bloodbath.  But honestly, get The Silence of the Lambs instead.  Untraceable stole everything from Lambs, right down to the movie poster.  Granted the original doesn't have anything to do with web analytics, but as far as the genre goes it's light-years better.