Lavacon 2012 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value

How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics

to Expand their Corporate Value

Karen Buchanan

&

Bob Zebian

About the Speakers

Karen Buchanan [email protected] 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: [email protected] 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.

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

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


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.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_analytics

Documentation on the Web is Now the Norm


•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


• “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)

http://www.cherryleaf.com/blog/2010/01/trends-in-technical-communication-in-2010-













Web Analytics 101


• 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


• 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


• 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


• 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


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



Top Viewed Pages



Browser Types

Internet Explorer 746%



Firefox16%

Google Chrome3% Others (Opera, Safari,

Mozilla)1%

Browser Type Used by IDEV Visitors

Web Analytics Now


• 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


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



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



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



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



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


• 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


•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


•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


• 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


• 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.


Privacy and Legal Concerns


• 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



Thank you

for your time.

Lavacon 2012 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value

Technology

Transcript of Lavacon 2012 How Documentation Teams Can Use Web Analytics to Expand their Corporate Value