January 06, 2011 3:17 p.m.
We are creatures of meaning. Everyone wants to know the meaning of things, but not everything has meaning or can be interpreted the same way. As Freud famously said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” Nowhere is this more apropos than in the meaning of website statistics, and especially in the often-misunderstood analytics metric: Bounce Rate.
This from Google:
Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page.
This is its exact definition. But, Google goes on to provide an interpretation:
Use this metric to measure ...
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Updated 01/06/11 @ 03:17PM CST by brian
Categories:
Technology User Interface
August 24, 2010 10:56 a.m.
Google analytics did not introduce formal mobile device reporting until November of 2009, but that does not mean you cannot track your mobile traffic before that time. There are a large number of discussions about how to configure current GA features to track mobile visits, but how do you track historical information and compare apples to apples if you did not configure Advanced Segments or set up other tracking methods a year or two ago? Here are a number of ways in which to track your mobile device site visits previous to November 2009:
- Screen Resolution – You can track resolutions ...
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Updated 08/24/10 @ 10:56AM CDT by cpeters
Categories:
Technology User Interface
December 17, 2009 10:33 a.m.
It's the bottom of the 9th for online shopping. Even though we've been buying stuff for the past three weeks, it's still crunch time.
One of the items on our list was a silly kids music CD. We had borrowed it from the library and the kids listened to it...over and over and over again. I was thrilled when it was time to return it. However, they really wanted one of their very own for Christmas. Alas, the sacrifices of parenthood.
And so, we are the proud owners of The Hobo Nickels: Cooper County, purchased from ...
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Updated 07/14/10 @ 10:33AM CDT by brian
Categories:
User Interface
October 21, 2009 10:37 a.m.
Imaginary is sending out a large marketing mailing. We have hundreds of small boxes being sent first class mail. Since we do not have a postage machine and I did not want to affix 4 separate postage stamps to each box, I signed up with Stamps.com.
The account requires a credit card in order to pre-purchase postage, so I put down an American Express and proceeded to purchase about $900 in postage.
Stamps.com only allows accounts to hold $250 in total postage, so it required several purchase-print-purchase-print cycles to get all the postage I needed. I started with ...
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Updated 07/14/10 @ 10:37AM CDT by brian
Categories:
Rants User Interface
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September 25, 2009 10:40 a.m.
Today, I was searching for a specific product which I found on eBay. I confess to not using eBay very often - in fact I don't remember when I last used it, but it has been many years.
And so, I proceeded through the purchase process. The site gave me the option of logging in or buying as a guest. I chose the latter, since I have no idea what my login credentials are.
I went through the purchase process and into the checkout process when the site presented me the following error message:
"This e-mail address is already registered ...
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Updated 07/14/10 @ 10:40AM CDT by brian
Categories:
User Interface
I always find Jakob Nielsen's usability columns interesting. I rarely disagree with his mostly common sense approach, however I found myself at odds with a recent Alertbox column, entitled "Stop Password Masking."
In a nutshell, he believes the common practice of displaying dots or asterisks when typing in a password to be unnecessary and a usability problem. He says that it causes users to make more password entry errors since they can not visually verify what is being typed. I agree on both counts.
He says that because password entry errors are more likely, users therefore feel less confident ...
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Updated 07/14/10 @ 10:48AM CDT by brian
Categories:
Research Technology User Interface
January 12, 2009 11:05 a.m.
After a year of more of legal wrangling, Target finally settled the class action law suit filed against it by the National Federation of the Blind. The suit alleged that target.com violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by not having an accessible design.
In the settlement, Target will make its website accessible to blind visitors, pay $6 million and pay to have the site independently monitored for ongoing accessibility.
Hey Target? Next time, just make the site accessible. It's the right thing to do - and a lot cheaper in the long run.
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Updated 07/14/10 @ 11:05AM CDT by brian
Categories:
Business User Interface Web News
September 02, 2008 11:13 a.m.
Just when we thought upstart Firefox would (and has to a certain degree) knock Internet Explorer off it's throne, here comes Chrome.
Today is the launch of Google's shiny new browser. And it is a big deal.
Microsoft still holds 73 percent of the browser market, according to Net Applications, a research firm. The market share for Firefox has climbed to 19 percent, while Apple’s Safari has 6 percent, according to the NY Times.
Prompting the company to launch early was the leak of an online comic book. It seems that Google created a comic book to ...
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Updated 07/14/10 @ 11:13AM CDT by brian
Categories:
Cool Web Stuff Technology User Interface Web News
April 22, 2008 11:29 a.m.
In what may be the first "physical" attack conducted through the Internet, hackers descended upon an epilepsy support group forum and uploaded strobing and complex images with the goal of causing seizures.
It worked.
The attack was conducted by a group of griefers, a special name given to someone whose sole mission is to go online and cause others grief.
According to the article in Wired Magazine, the Epilepsy Foundation closed down the forum briefly to remove the offending images, but not before several people seized up.
It's hard to imagine the reasons or motivations for such an effort ...
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Updated 07/14/10 @ 11:29AM CDT by brian
Categories:
People Acting Badly User Interface
October 09, 2007 11:54 a.m.
As Web developers we are sticklers for website details. That's why I always look at the copyright year, often found in the footer of a page. Ours reads:
Copyright © 1995 - 2010 Imaginary Landscape, LLC. All rights reserved.
Whenever I go to a website, my eyes go immediately to the year. You'd be surprised how many websites say 2006 or 2002 or even 1999. At best, is demonstrates no attention to details and at worst it proclaims the site as abandoned.
At Imaginary, we have our site and our client sites set up so their copyright date updates at ...
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Updated 07/14/10 @ 11:54AM CDT by brian
Categories:
Cool Web Stuff User Interface
Imaginary Landscape
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