Blog Archives

Lies, damned lies, and aggregated statistics. Google Analytics Overview reports explained including why you shouldn’t use them

Posted on 27/05/2015 by Dominic Hurst — 3 Comments

Strong title I know, but its got your attention. For clarity, Google Analytics doesn’t lie, what does is those people using the data who are either misinformed or aren’t getting the most out of GA…read on if that’s you! This post…

Using Personas in Google Analytics to drive “real” insights

Posted on 24/04/2015 by Dominic Hurst — 2 Comments

Google Analytics goal reports split by persona

No doubt a lot of you use or have heard about personas. Creating personas comes from analysing and understanding user behaviour from a range of sources including quant data. At NICE we have begun the journey of creating personas and naturally I started…

Create meaningful insights for Enterprise Search Tools using Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager

Posted on 21/04/2015 by Dominic Hurst — Leave a comment

We, NICE, like several other organisations provide a search facility similar to an enterprise search; that being we index several external resources and provide the tool to search them. By default this means the standard site search feature of Google Analytics…

Tagged with: enterprise, enterprise search, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, insights, search, search query
Posted in General Advice, Improvements, Insights

Getting started with A/B testing: Part 3 – Results

Posted on 16/04/2015 by Dominic Hurst — Leave a comment

So our test has been up and running. Previously I mentioned an issue with numbers; partly because of an additional variation thinning out traffic, but also picking a page that wasn’t getting enough traffic. After waiting an additional week we have some…

Tagged with: A/B test, A/B testing, footfall, Google Analytics, sample size, test, testing, testing tools, User Research, User Testing
Posted in Insights, Optimisation

3 ways to get buy-in to UX tests

Posted on 07/04/2015 by Dominic Hurst — Leave a comment

data insights are the basis to continual improvement

As a web/ UX analyst I am involved in UX tests (card sorting, a/b tests, lab tests, user study) on a daily basis. WhichTestWon kindly asked me to present on this topic in what turned into a great discussion by all those…

Tagged with: A/B test, buy-in, card sort test, tests, ux, ux tests
Posted in Insights, User Testing

Getting started with A/B testing: Part 2 – Start the test

Posted on 23/03/2015 by Dominic Hurst — Leave a comment

With our goals recording, we went in search of an ideal candidate/ a pain point we knew needed improving. At NICE we revolve around providing guidance on a range of health issues. Within each piece of guidance is key recommendations…

Tagged with: A/B test, A/B testing, footfall, Google Analytics, sample size, test, testing, testing tools, User Research, User Testing
Posted in Insights, Optimisation

Getting buy-in from senior management to data-driven design

Posted on 17/03/2015 by Dominic Hurst — 4 Comments

For those who attended my session at MeasureCamp (even those who didn’t) below is some of the good and bad experiences on buy-in to data-driven design from those in attendance. As mentioned on Google+ I have written a post previously on building…

Tagged with: best practice, buy-in, data-driven, senior management
Posted in General Advice, Insights

Getting started with A/B testing: Part 1 – Preparation

Posted on 11/03/2015 by Dominic Hurst — Leave a comment

Whilst personally this isn’t my first foray into A/B testing, it is for my current place of work and as so I thought it was an ideal opportunity to document the process. With doing this, I will be able to…

Tagged with: A/B test, A/B testing, testing, testing tools, User Research, User Testing
Posted in Insights, Optimisation

Search queries from mobile devices – Keyword research using google webmaster tools

Posted on 16/12/2014 by Dominic Hurst — Leave a comment

Keyword research is an essential process when developing or updating content. According to the latest research by Search Metrics, Content is ultimately the number one ranking factor and thus where your research is most beneficial: Quality is paramount, and is achieved by…

Tagged with: CTR, filters, google+, keyword, keyword research, keywords, mobile, mobile users, research, search queries, SEO, webmaster tools
Posted in Insights, SEO

Customize Dashboards in Google Analytics – Tips plus requested features

Posted on 11/12/2014 by Dominic Hurst — 3 Comments

Presenting data, especially key metrics is part of the day to day role of Google Analytics users. We often have to produce collections of data, specific to parts of a website or more importantly data that relates to the objectives…