Information architecture: Data‐driven design: Using web analytics to validate heuristics system

Abstract

Web analytics, the practice of web traffic analysis, provides intelligence for marketers and executives responsible for proving return on investment (ROI). However, web analytics' greatest potential lies in improving the online user experience. When analytics data is shared with the design team, a subtler and more sophisticated user-experience design can emerge.\r\rWeb analytic data is mined from site activity logs and can offer a wealth of information about user behavior. Information architects, when interviewed about the web analytic measures of greatest value to their craft, center their comments on its value in providing context for decisions and heuristic assumptions. There are a variety of popular heuristics in common use, and here we discuss ways that web analytics can be applied to using Robert Rubinoff's user experience audit [1].\r\rHis four basic factors of user experience — branding, functionality, usability and content — constitute a heuristic evaluation framework. This framework aims to provide “a quick-and-dirty methodology for quantifying the user experience,” rather than a fixed algorithmic approach or a completely subjective one. Rubinoff's audit is a flexible assessment tool, with which the site development team selects audit statements for each factor and uses them to evaluate how well the site serves its users. A selection of audit statements provides the basis for the discussion of the role web analytics can play in evaluating the validity of the assessment.