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Higher education websites have a tendency to be … shall we say … wordy. We forget that web users scan and don’t read. Yes, this includes *our* web pages! Gasp! Not *our* web pages! Surely users read *our* web pages word-for-word, don’t they?

No. Don’t fool yourself.

A recent Jakob Neilsen alertbox article states users typically only read about 20% of the words on the page. Again, *force* yourself to repeat after me. Users are not reading my web pages.

So, how can we best get users attention when we know they’re only reading 20% of our content?
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As I mentioned in my Usability at McDonald’s post a couple weeks ago, usability goes way beyond websites. We encounter it everyday – in grocery stores, in restaurants, in forms we fill out at the doctor’s office, on street signs, and everywhere else.

It’s so important for website creators (whether you’re the designer, developer, content creator, marketer, or tied to the website in any other way) to constantly think about usability … and think about it from an *outsiders* standpoint.

“Is my website usable?”

“Is my website usable for people who know nothing about my website?”
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Those who know me know I love iced tea. I drink it all the time. My entire family is a huge *plain* iced tea family. No lemon. No sugar. Nothing. Plain. When I think about sweet tea, my inner ten-year-old comes out. I curl my toes, crinkle my nose and say, “ewwww.”

Where am I going with this? Stay with me. I’m getting there.
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I have two cats, Hogan and Haley. Haley loves food. She can’t get enough. She acts like I have been starving her for the past 10 years. She loves treats. So, I always give in, walk out to the kitchen, open up the treats and give her a few. Then I try to close the “resealable, stay fresh package.” For some reason it won’t reseal!

I spend a good five minutes and the darn thing won’t close! So, the package touts that it’s stay fresh and resealable, but it doesn’t state you need to be patient for the ten minutes it may take you to actually close the bag. <sigh>

Let’s move on.
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Internal site search can give you so many great insights. Remember, this is how your users are searching your site. I can see you reading this saying, “Duh. Thank you, miss obvious!” Think about it, though. What does that tell you? What does it scream?

Pay attention! That’s what it tells you. Internal site search is like a mini usability test. Instead of formally asking users what they are looking for on your website, they’re telling you … in their own words … without you asking them!

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Let me take a little break from analytics for a minute.

I’m currently reading a fantastic book called, A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers will Rule the Future,” by Daniel Pink. When I’m finished with the book I plan to write an entire post about it, but I had to share some thoughts I had now.

Even though I’m only halfway through, I immediately saw an analogy to higher education websites.
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In this post, instead of talking about specific reports that will help track a department or unit Intranet, I will be focusing on how Intranets differ from most public-facing websites and how you look at your analytics will also be different.

Department Intranets are very different from your public-facing sites. For one thing, most of them are behind some type of authentication, which can add some complexity. Some intranets may also include AJAX or other types of technology that are not the standard static html pages.
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The topic of my post today was going to be about analtyics metrics (visits, unique visits, page views) and what those terms actually mean.

My thoughts changed, though, as I was reading through the posts of the day. Anne Peterson wrote a great post about usability and how sometimes it’s just impossible to test for every possible type of user.

We run into this quite frequently in World Campus because our user demographics vary so much. Anne mentions to keep it simple with usability testing and I completely agree. I might go even further and say keep it simple when it comes to design, developing, and writing copy for your website. Sometimes we spend so much time developing and creating for the minority of our users (the exceptions) that we forget about the majority of our users.
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Usability tests are awesome. They really are. So many actionable insights can be drawn from a good usability test. Usually you don’t need more than five testers to get some good data. It’s such a strong message when the powers-that-be are confronted with video after video of users struggling to complete their website goal. It makes you sad, makes you laugh, and gives you a smile on your face all at the same time.

But after the usability test, how can you know if your new redesign, restructure, re[whatever] is successful? I know you know the answer! : )
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