Users

Ashley Friedlein is founder and CEO of Econsultancy. In the latest Foviance podcast, we discussed digital marketing in social media.  Read more…

 This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com and is republished here with permission. 

Last week I was over in San Jose for the Emetrics Marketing Optimisation Summit for three days of input and output on all issues around digital analytics. As usual there was a wide variety of content to absorb and a breadth of issues to discuss. As I sit and write this at the airport on my way home (got to meet those ClickZ deadlines…) I get a chance to reflect on some of the key themes that came out of the conference. Read more…

The enterprising people at Nokia have set up a $5 dollar comparison website. This interesting site allows you to see pictures that have been uploaded by people around the world showing (you guessed it) things that cost $5. The website aims to explore the relative value of $5 and is asking people to upload their own images. Nokia admit that the amount is an arbitrary one but are most interested in exploring how low cost communication can be brought to the masses (3.3 Billion) still without mobile communication. Being able to tap into this considerable market would be very profitable for whoever gets there first.

It is an interesting concept in these frugal times, but is it one that is going to provide an insight into how to break into this untapped market? I am not convinced. I think it is a novel way to while away 5 or 10 minutes but that’s really as far as it goes. The most interesting thing about the site is what it highlights – the value of 5 dollars around the world. But of course communicating value it is not always as simple as displaying a picture of what it’s worth. Others have tried to highlight value in different ways, Boden for example have a formula that purports to measure the value of their clothes: value = price (£) / times worn.

However, highlighting the value in what we do as an industry is a different story. Companies do not always realise that investing in usability or the user experience can reap huge rewards. But I think, to be fair, a lot of companies are coming around to this way of thinking. However, with all the belt tightening and credit crunching that is going on at the moment, some have opted to try and save by cutting spending on evaluations. This could well be to their detriment as more prudent companies recognise that now more than ever is no time for cutting corners when you are trying to get an edge in a competitive market.

There are a number of ways to stay ahead of the game – analytics can help you measure success and failure and point to areas that cause users to drop off, not to mention understanding who is visiting your site and why. If this is carried out both pre and post user testing, its real value is clear. By combining analytics with user testing or an expert review you can get a more holistic view of your online offering. For cross-channel insight you can think about throwing emotional research into the mix. If your belt tightening is starting to make you feel the pinch maybe it is time to consider some of the above!

Blog by Ronan Tighe

It goes without saying that the iPhone and in particular the App Store has revolutionised the mobile market. It has opened up the possibilities of mobile computing that were promised before (WAP anyone?) but never materialised.
The gaming industry obviously wants to get a piece of the action, however Apple’s refusal to allow ‘play for real’ applications in its store has become a major barrier. It’s clear from the popularity of ‘play for fun’ apps such as Apple’s own Texas Holdem game that there is huge demand from iPhone users (myself included).To get around the problem, gaming sites have been making iPhone friendly pages and trying their hardest to direct users to them. Since getting my iPhone I’ve been trying lots of these sites out and have come to the conclusion that there are 3 key factors behind what makes a good site.

Firstly, the layout and design of iPhone sites can be designed very similarly to real apps, which is great, as in the short space of time apps have been around, some helpful design conventions have emerged. Ensuring your site conforms to these conventions ensures that users will learn how to use it very quickly. Betfair’s iPhone site does this really well with the exception of having the ‘home’ button where the ‘back’ button is normally on an app. This frustrates me greatly when I use the site as I still continually hit it by mistake.

Performance is the second major factor in the user experience. A number of casino sites I’ve visited have failed badly in this regard. Sometimes the spin will take less the 4 or 5 seconds to complete, other times it takes over 30 seconds and then crashes. Having tried these games several times over the course of a week on both 3G and several Wi Fi networks the problem remained. It should go without saying that this has a major impact on the user experience. Mobile gaming is all about quickly opening up a game and playing for a couple of minutes whenever the opportunity arises. If you don’t have confidence in being able to do that you simply won’t play. On top of that, would you be willing to place real money on a site that isn’t stable?

Finally the third issue is security, sites need to be secure without over doing it. Users will want to quickly access sites without having to enter their usernames and password every time. At the same time there needs to be some level of security as if you lose your phone you don’t want the person who finds it to be able to access your account. Some sites automatically disconnect when you leave the browser however this is annoying if you are just quickly answering a call. The best approach I’ve seen is the use of a short pin number. It can be quickly entered and provides enough security without hindering the user experience.

The art of web analytics has solved many of the mysteries behind customer behaviour, but some wonders of the web remain. This year, I aim to unravel the secrets behind four of them and you are invited help with the research.

Together, we can crack the mystery of cookie deletion. If users are routinely cleaning out cookies, you could find that you have significantly fewer unique visitors than you previously thought. Indeed, a study by Jupiter Research in 2005 concluded that 10% of users delete their cookies daily, 12% do so monthly and a whopping 17% remove cookies every month. Our own studies with WebAbacus have compared the number of randomly generated permanent first-party cookies with the number of registration IDs, which is a good way to tie cookies to real people. The ratio over a month has been about 1.179 cookies per ID, but this has been increasing year on year, suggesting that more people are deleting their cookies on a regular basis. Further investigation is clearly needed.

Cookie blocking is a related issue. First party cookies are those set by the site the user is visiting, and they tend to be considered more trustworthy than third party cookies, issued by another site such as an advertising provider. Our preliminary figures suggest around 0.2% of visits are blocking first party cookies. Additional research is need to compare this to third party cookies, and to broaden the sample size. It’s not always possible to use a registration ID to increase the accuracy of web analytics, so it is essential that websites can understand the margin of error in cookie-based statistics.

Most web content is free to view, often funded by advertising placed against it. With the rise of the Firefox browser, which is easy to customise, there has been concern that more internet users would block advertising using plug-ins such as Ad Block Plus. Some media sites are blocking Firefox users altogether, but with ad blockers becoming more widespread for Internet Explorer, this will no longer be viable. Some sites suggest that 10-15% of their visitors use ad blocking, but our own preliminary figures suggest around 1.2% of visitors are blocking adverts. We would be interested in hearing from companies that would be willing to help with further research, including those that do not run advertising.

The final wonder of the web is tabbed browsing, which has become more popular with the growth of Firefox and the introduction of tabs in Internet Explorer. Opening content in tabs enables users to hop about the site more easily and read some content while other content loads. From an analytics point of view, it means the clickstream recorded can include illogical leaps between unlinked pages. By noticing differences between the page referrer and the previous page downloaded, it can be possible to tell whether the current page was requested in a tabbed session. Further research is needed to work out how many people use tabs, and what effect it has on how they navigate websites.

As I said, you’re invited to participate in this research. Data can be collected using WebAbacus, results will be fully anonymised, and traffic levels will remain confidential. If you’d like to learn more about what’s involved, please email me without obligation.