February 28, 2008: Site Search Analytics workshop outline


Here's the outline of what I plan to cover in my new workshop. [1]
Does this sound like what you'd expect to be covered in a workshop
about using site search analytics to improve UX design? Anything
missing? Anything seem extraneous?

To entice you to give it some thought, I'll send a copy of Indi
Young's new Mental Models book [2] or a signed polar bear v3 [3] to
the three most helpful commenters who post feedback before Monday,
March 3.

OK, here 'tis...

1) What is Site Search Analytics (SSA)?
A brief primer on what the data is and what we can learn from
it. Cover search log anatomy, introduce samples of common reports.
Explore Zipf distribution (long tail, short head, middle torso).
2) The Point of SSA
Overview of methods for determining what users want, and how SSA
is different from and complementary with traditional methods.
Demonstrate the value of data-driven analysis for designers.
3) SSA Demonstration
Introduce generic questions that can be asked of any data set.
Live demonstration of basic analytics to indicate sessions, patterns,
and failures.
4) Technical Stuff: the nuts and bolts of SSA
The three ways queries are captured. Comparison of reports from
a variety of tools (search engine, web analytics).
5) Exercise/Discussion: Pattern Analysis
Hands-on analysis to determine frequent queries, query
categories, metadata values and attributes, and content types. Plumb
the impact of seasonality/time.
6) Improving Navigation and Metadata
Using SSA to generate metadata attributes and types, determine
synonyms, popular terms, major categories. Improve contextual
navigation.
7) Exercise/Discussion: Failure Analysis
Analyze failures (e.g., common failed queries, navigational
failures) to diagnose problems, suggest possible fixes or follow-up
research.
8) Improving Content
Tuning content and titling to improve findability. Identify and
plug content gaps. Determine common content types.
9) Exercise/Discussion: Session Analysis
Identifying and sampling sessions. Looking for patterns within
sessions, and learning from the changes that commonly take place
during sessions.
10 Improving Search
Interface design improvements to query entry UI, search results
presentation, and search refinement UI.
11) SSA and UX methodology
How SSA fills a quantitative hole within typically qualitative
UX methodologies. Show how SSA can improve task analysis, personas,
and other traditional UX methods.
12) Advanced Topics/Discussion
As time permits, discuss SSA's impact on business strategy, when
and how to sample the Long Tail, and how to get SSA embedded within
your organization.

PERMALINK
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/2008/02/site_search_analytics_works\
hop.html

LINKS
[1] http://louisrosenfeld.com/ssa
[2] http://www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/mental-models/
[3] http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/infoarch3/index.html

INTERESTED? COME TO THE WORKSHOP!
Dates/locations/registration here: http://louisrosenfeld.com/ssa