[Kolab-devel] The kolab.org website

[Paul James Adams]

Hi Bernhard,

Thanks for your input... My thoughts are below.

On Friday, November 12, 2010 12:21:33 pm Bernhard Reiter wrote:
> I cannot say what "adding website analytics tracking code" would mean.

Piwik works by inserting a small Javascript into your websites main template. 
Each time a page is visited the Javascript is executed sending the relevant 
details of the the website user and what they are up to.

> Personally I do not accept cookies whereever I can and I am getting annoyed
> by convulted URLs, obstructing the ease of linking to pages.

Piwik neither makes use of cookies (as far as I am aware) or munge URLS. It is 
purely Javascript. It works seemlessly (or not) as long as you have Javascript 
enabled (or not) in your browser.

> In addition
> I like personal data privacy which means that I would only track something
> that is absolutely necessary, which is not much for an information webpage.
> So I have a tendency against adding "tracking" code in general.

Did you pay that much attention to the Piwik output? There is nothing in there 
which is objectionable. It does not communicate the website user's shoe size 
or sexual preference. 

All Piwik does is track where a user comes into the website, where did they 
arrive from, where are they in the world, how long did they hang around for, 
pages they visited etc etc. 

> Looking at the wiki and the webpages, I can see a number of content
> improvements and I believe that good structure and content is the best
> somebody can do for their success of a webpage.

I could not agree more. So where do you suggest we start? 

For years now the use of website analytics has been the standard method for 
indicating which parts of a website are not working well. Unless you base your 
restructuring decisions based upon the usage patterns of real users, they can 
only be based upon "intuition" or "pure guess work" as I like to call it.

> Given the limited resources
> there I would work on the obvious points first and then employ simplified
> usability tests with people we know

Come on Bernhard, you have got to be kidding me? :-) Do you seriously think 
usability testing is less resource-consuming that adding 10 lines of 
Javascript to the website's main template?

We /could/ do usability testing using 10 guinea-pigs and take a few weeks over 
it. Or we could just include the Piwik Javascript and gather the usage 
patterns of 1000s of visitors in a day or so.


All the best,
Paul

-- 
Dr. Paul J. Adams
Chief Operating Officer

Kolab Systems AG
Zürich, Switzerland

e: adams at kolabsys.com
t: +447745 133 285
w: http://kolabsys.com

pgp: 44E0 29C0 Paul James Adams
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