Post on 07-Nov-2014
description
How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics
to Expand their Corporate Value
Karen Buchanan
&
Bob Zebian
About the Speakers
Karen Buchanan kbuchana@us.ibm.comKaren Buchanan is Senior Manager of Information Development Team for the B2B & Commerce products in IBM's Industry Solutions Software Group, where she leads 4 teams of 50 writers, editors, and information architects across multiple US locations and Bangalore, India. Karen holds a BA in English from Bowling Green State University and an MBA from Franklin University. She has worked in various technical writing and documentation team lead and management roles for more than 20 years.
Bob Zebian: bzebian@us.ibm.comBob Zebian is an Advisory Software Engineer for the B2B & Commerce products in IBM's Industry Solutions Software Group. He has worked in the Information Development field for 30 years. He has spoken at several conferences and written several papers about subjects such as DITA and web analytics.
3 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
The observations and opinions expressed in this presentation are the authors’ own and do not necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.
Agenda
4 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
Web analytics overview
Web analytics use within Information Development teams
Web analytics use outside of Information Development
How to get started
Privacy and legal concerns
Questions
Web Analytics
“Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet data for purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_analytics
We see web analytics in use everyday.– Amazon– Google – Rhapsody
Web analytics are used for Marketing and Sales purposes, such as effectiveness of ad campaigns or how customers decide to purchase. But the data can be used for documentation purposes also.
5 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
Documentation on the Web is Now the Norm
6 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
•Some studies show that 70% of companies place documentation on the web and make it searchable by public search engines such as Google, Bing, etc.
•IBM Eclipse Infocenters average over 11 million visits and 73 million topics viewed each month.
4,272,341
6,484,799
8,221,240
11,272,227
4,000,000
5,000,000
6,000,000
7,000,000
8,000,000
9,000,000
10,000,000
11,000,000
12,000,000
2009 2010 2011 2012
Average Monthly Visits to IBM Infocenters
Web Analytics 101
7 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
• “For many people, particularly those under 30, if information is not on the Web, it doesn’t exist. … The value of technical documentation has been extremely difficult to measure. Web Analytics offers the ability to measure the effectiveness of the deliverables in new ways.”
- Ellis Pratt, Cherryleaf (http://www.cherryleaf.com/blog/2010/01/trends-in-technical-communication-in-2010- and-beyond)
Web Analytics 101
8 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
• Web Analytic tools, such as IBM Unica NetInsight, IBM CoreMetrics, Google Analytics, track and report user activity on web sites.
• Two types of analytic tools are available:
• Log analysis tools
• Run in-house
• Compile web server log data into statistics
• Present good basic data, but not as useful for more customized analysis
• Usually maintained by the IT department and ID teams may have a hard time getting the information they want
• Script-based analytic services
• Usually hosted on vendor server (can be run in-house)
• Usually requires insertion of a tracking script in the HTML
• Provide users with more ways to customize the data
Web Analytics 101
9 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
• Types of standard web analytics useful to documentation:
• Number of visitors - How many people are looking at a page
• Number of visits – How many times the pages were visited within a session
• Pages viewed – How any times a page was viewed
• Least number of pages viewed – What pages have the least traffic
• Viewing duration – An average of the viewing duration for a page
• Navigation path – How the user got to the page
• Search keywords – Search keywords that the user used to find the page
• User location – Where the user is located
• Browser – The user’s browser
• Operating system – The operating system of the user’s machine
• Mobile device type – If applicable, the mobile device that the user used to access the page
• File downloads – Which files the user downloaded
Web Analytics at Sterling Commerce
10 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
• Pre-acquisition in 2010, Sterling Commerce provided over 70,000 online pages of documentation spread among 70 HTML sites and 12 infocenters.
• Sterling was a metrics-driven organization that set goals and measured performance on metrics.
• Information Development had difficulty determining effective, measureable metrics.
• Started using Google Analytics to track documentation site usage in 2008.
• Steps involved:
• Creating Google account and setting up Google Analytics
• Adding Google analytics tracking JavaScript code to sample of content.
• Produced reports for management and ID teams.
• With management approval, added tracking code to remainder of sites:
• Used global find & replace tools to insert code into existing HTML pages
• Added tracking JavaScript insertion to production tools (WebWorks, DITA OT)
• Reported monthly metrics to upper management. Made upper management happy.
Web Analytics at Sterling Commerce
11 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
• Began tracking basic activity, such as pages most viewed and viewing average time.
• Management was made aware of how many people were using online documentation daily.
• Helped reinforce movement from book paradigm to online paradigm
• User were not reading documentation all the way through. Instead users were getting in, reading, and getting out.
• Users looked at an average of 5 pages per visit.
• Users averaged about 5 minutes on site.
• 45% of users were using search to find content.
Examples from Sterling Commerce
12 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
Monthly View Trends
81,127.00
101,908.00
61,698.00
95,678.00
70,383.00
58,286.00
0
20,000
40,000
60,000
80,000
100,000
120,000
Oct. Nov. December January February March
V
i
s
i
t
s
IDEV Web Pages Views - Past 6 Months
Examples from Sterling Commerce
13 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
Top Viewed Pages
Examples from Sterling Commerce
14 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
Browser Types
Internet Explorer 746%
Internet Explorer 619%
Internet Explorer 815%
Firefox16%
Google Chrome3% Others (Opera, Safari,
Mozilla)1%
Browser Type Used by IDEV Visitors
Web Analytics Now
15 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
• After acquisition, we moved to an IBM tool, Unica NetInsight to track activity on infocenters and web sites.
• NetInsight works similarly to Google Analytics, from a documentation use perspective.
• Change involved:
• Creating a NetInsight account.
• Replacing Google Analytics JavaScript with NetInsight JavaScript in HTML pages, again by using search & replace tools.
• Changing production tools to insert NetInsight JavaScript.
• Setting up reports and filters in NetInsight.
• Effort took abut two months to update 15 Infocenters.
Examples of Web Analytics Now
16 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
View Trends
928,011838,326 874,281 854,553
1,290,941
80000
280000
480000
680000
880000
1080000
1280000
1480000
March April May June July
V
i
s
i
t
s
B2B & Commerce ID Web Views
Examples of Web Analytics Now
17 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
Page Views by Product Line
76949
11,53125,429
405,123
111971,275 7,459
48,905
65752
10,256 17,970
356,218
0
50000
100000
150000
200000
250000
300000
350000
400000
450000
B2B/MFT/WTX SAAS SSFS Websphere Commerce
July Visitors to B2B & Commerce ID Sites by Product Line
Total Visitors
IBM Visitors
Non-IBM Visitors
Examples of Web Analytics Now
18 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
Top Plugins Viewed
877
932
983
1057
1908
3137
3942
4368
4369
8798
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000
SSFS 9.1 Foundation Upgrade
SSFS 9.1 DOM Configuration
SSFS 9.1 Sterling Store and Call Center Implementation
SSFS 9.2 Performance Management
SSFS 9.2 Installing, Configuring, and Deploying WC
SSFS 9.2 Upgrade
SSFS 9.2 Product Concepts
SSFS 9.2 Installation
SSFS 9.1 Foundation Installation
SSFS 9.1 Product Concepts
Top 10 Viewed SSFS Plugins
Examples of Web Analytics Now
19 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
developerWorks Topics
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
IBM developerWorks : Commerce : Connect
Check EDI compliance with WebSphere DataPower
developerWorks : Mathematical Programming : CPLEX Optimizer : …
developerWorks : WebSphere : WebSphere Commerce : Filter …
IBM developerWorks : Commerce : Solutions
IBM developerWorks : New to WebSphere Commerce
developerWorks : Mathematical Programming : CPLEX Optimizer
IBM developerWorks : Commerce : Overview
developerWorks : WebSphere : WebSphere Commerce
e-Commerce security: Attacks and preventive strategies
Top 10 B2B Commerce developerWorks Pages - September
Examples of Web Analytics Now
20 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
PDF Downloads
Sterling B2B integrator 5.2
System Requirements, 271
Connect:Direct for UNIX 4.1 User Guide, 139
Connect:Direct Overview, 134
Connect:Direct for z/OS 5.1 User Guide, 132
Connect:Direct Process Examples, 129
Connect:Direct Process Statements, 117
Connect:Direct for UNIX 4.1 Administration
Guide, 112
Connect:Direct for UNIX 4.1 Getting Started
Guide, 109
Connect:Direct for Windows 4.6.01
System Guide, 102
Connect:Direct for Windows 4.6.01 Getting
Started Guide, 95
Top 10 PDF Downloads - July
Analytics Use Outside of ID – Case 1
21 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
• Sterling B2B Integrator has over 250 services and adapters that integrate with other products.
• QA must allocate resources to test these adapters for each release.
• By identifying the adapters whose help is most viewed, we can assume that they are the most used.
• QA can then focus on testing the commonly viewed and used adapters.
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
Document Keyword Replace Service
HTTP Server Adapter
Remote Method Invocation (RMI) Adapter
Get Document Info Service
Invoke Sub-Process Service
FTP Client Begin Session Service
WebSphere MQ Adapter
SMTP Send Adapter
Lightweight Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) Adapter
File System Adapter
Top 10 SI B2B 5.2 Services and Adapters - July 2012
Analytics Use Outside of ID – Case 2
22 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
•A product line was considering adding support for a particular browser.
•We produced a browser usage report for them.
•From this, their Product Development decided that adding support would only benefit a limited number of users and would not be cost-beneficial.
Internet Explorer 8
Firefox
Internet Explorer 7
Google Chrome
Internet Explorer 9
Internet Explorer 6
Safari
Others (Opera, misc.)0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
Feb Mar Apr May June July
Browser Types Accessing IDEV Web Site - All Users
Other Analytics Uses
23 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
•Joint efforts between Support and Information Development teams to reduce customer cases by:
•Identifying high-volume cases that can be addressed via better documentation
•Analyzing call volume pre- and post- project
•Quantifying results in $$$$
•Search improvements through keyword analysis
•Social network analysis
Getting Started – Questions to Ask
24 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
• What are users looking at?
• What aren’t users looking at, and why?
• Where should we invest our time?
• What types of issues are driving our customers to the documentation?
• Are customers reviewing hot fix/maintenance releases?
• Working with support, consider how web analytics data aligns with support calls and open tickets?
• Working with product manager, how do user profiles (browsers, language, OS) impact product direction?
Getting Started – Get the Ball Rolling
25 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
• Look at the analytic tool options.
• Does your corporate web team already use an analytics service that you can piggyback on?
• Free services?
• Vendor services?
• Do you need to modify your content to accommodate?
• Run a pilot project and analyze results.
• Do the results answer your questions?
• If not, look at what data your capturing. Do you need other data?
• If yes, expand wider.
• Create action and follow up plans.
• Set up who can access what, and who can modify what.
• Don’t work in a silo – involve other departments
Data Analysis and Manipulation
Data can be downloaded into a spreadsheet.
Use Excel functions such as text-to-columns, concatenate, and subtotal to slice and dice the raw data.
Use Excel graphing to functions make pictures for senior management.
26 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
Privacy and Legal Concerns
27 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
• Most analytic systems use cookies and JavaScript to report user activity.
• Personally identifiable information (IP address) is generally not reported. However, it may be accumulated and analyzed by the analytics service for demographics such as location. This may raise privacy issues.
• If you use web analytics, make sure that your company’s web privacy policy clearly states the use of cookies and that information is gathered.
• Some countries require instructions to allow users to opt out of tracking.
• If your company is already using a web analytics tool to track customer activity, then you may be covered by corporate policy. But . . .
We’re not lawyers. Talk to your Legal department to make sure that they are OK with web analytics use.
Questions
28 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
29 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value
Thank you
for your time.