METRICS FOR ANALYTICS

Some quick thoughts on useful things to measure for web analytics:

• Number of unique visitors: I know most analytics programs or server-side analytics engines can track this, but one of the most important lessons I've learned in analytics is that hits != visitors! With education, just as important.
  
  
• Time spent on a page. Difficult to measure (how to determine whether someone is reading or taking a break), but very useful. A lot of time spent on a page can be a very good thing.
  
  
• Conversion/goal tracking. Google analytics has a slick way of dealing with this. Basically, you want your users/learners to follow some sort of prescribed path--this can be tracked. If a student went from point A to point E, then back to B, and never ended up on the critical F, then something ain't right.

Also, some wish list items:

• More data per page. Imagine analytic technology that showed data as to what areas of the page were most focused on, not necessarily clicked on. In usability testing, this happens with a camera mounted on the user's computer that tracks eye movements. Not feasible from a broad analytical perspective, but I suspect it may not be as impossible as it sounds.
  
  
• More visualization. I'd love to see more dynamic, engaging, and at the same time useful visualizations of things like traffic demographics mashed with other tracked areas.