Fired Up: Why Can't I Search Google Analytics by Jonathan
December 15, 2008 in Interaction Design with 8 Comments
We believe in metrics at ZURB. We track them for our clients and for ourselves to get a handle on what's working and what's not, and where opportunity lies. One of our favorite tools is the free and powerful Google Analytics. However, something about Google Analytics has been really bothering me. See if you can find it on this dashboard screen.
Did you catch it? No search field! How does Google, a company built on the idea of mining vast sets of data, neglect to make searching a) easy and b) powerful in one of their key products?
So let's fix it!
Alright, we can't quite fix it. What we can do is make suggestions and put out ideas.
For starters, Google believes in a data-centric world and provides tools to reach that data. They've kept that approach incredibly simple (as evidenced by their always-spartan home page) so we'll do the same. A search field, nothing fancy, right up top.
Now we're getting somewhere. Click image for full view.
We've got the elements in place, now let's think about the interaction. Let's say I want to find how this blog post is doing. Searching for "Fired up" should return a list of any page with "Fired up" in the title or body copy, title results first. Searching for "twitter" should let me know that we get referrals from Twitter, and for what pages and how many.
However, search (especially from Google) can be so much more powerful. Mark here at ZURB tossed out: what about human language search? "Top ten pages from last week" should return a list of the ten highest-trafficked pages from the past calendar week, just like "5 highest referrers" should return the five largest incoming referrers of all time. Human language search is going to be huge, and soon—you can already see examples of it in Mozilla's Ubiquity concept.
Google = Search
Google Analytics is a great tool, and for the price (hah!) provides an extraordinary service. But it could do so much more, and more easily, than it already does. Google built a brand around search, the ubiquity of data – why not bring that into one of their flagship products?
Ryan correctly pointed out that Google Analytics does have a search function – however I'm choosing to ignore their difficult to find, even more difficult to use implementation.
8 Comments
Mark says:
I think one of the most important things to realize about search is that people ask questions like that all the time to themselves. "How can I do this? Oh, there it is..." It's a common thing for people to talk to themselves while they work—"thinking out loud" is always refreshing, and useful.
In this case, improving search to handle those kinds of things makes up for Google Analytics less than desirable navigation. Drilling down, there are lots of hidden features. Think of being able to ask Analytics for effectively anything you want. "Top 5 referrals for zurb.com/work last week" is awesomely useful.
Brandy says:
GA is searchable. Under content you can search for metrics on pages containing specific phrases. Also, under referring sites, you can search for referrals based on key terms contained in URLs. It would be nice if Google put these search capabilities in a more salient place.
Jonathan (ZURB) says:
Brandy:
You're right, Google Analytics does have some search capabilities – however what they have feels more like an afterthought rather than an approach. I would expect Google, of all companies, to have search first and foremost in their minds. Perhaps my title should have been 'Why does Google Analytics have such a miserable searching interface?"
Bryan (ZURB) says:
I would really like to search based on clicking into the graph- I often look at a spike and wonder, "what happened here?"
Jonathan (ZURB) says:
They actually have a somewhat similar mechanic on Google Finance – it would be pretty sweet to see some of that functionality brought into Analytics.
Hotel Muenster says:
Obviously Recognize,probably explore away anybody continue early acid start expenditure ready feel ignore surely climb outcome potential clear people below expert slightly council morning possible fact empty set now place date wrong item stuff grant see detailed elderly he lack provided hotel internal private step seek no-one up transfer call representative would last his beginning truth prime role meanwhile clean retain importance pupil fish channel to function strange code recently capital alright western trip cry take yet due policy environment back primary ball ensure screen lip past purpose eye bedroom properly lead division fully football rare study that theatre
hedge fund lawyers says:
Added to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you down teh road! Great site post. Ciao
bottleneck effect says:
refreshing and very informative. meself wish there were more blogs like it. Anyway, meself felt it was about time meself posted, I
Add your comment...