Data visualisation: Insight or eye candy?

I was talking to a web analytics systems vendor in the UK the other day. He was bemoaning the fact that they had lost a pitch for a potential client to another company and the main reason why they had lost was because they don’t currently offer a click overlay report.

A click overlay report is one where the number of times a particular link on a page is clicked is superimposed upon the page itself in the browser. It’s a very visual way of showing where people are clicking on a page and has become an increasingly popular feature of web analytics systems.

Talking to this particular vendor though it struck me as odd that this particular prospective client had made their decision on the fact that they didn’t have this particular type of report, despite being a good fit on a number of other different dimensions.

I know that a picture says a thousand words. I’m a great fan of reporting data in a visual way to reduce its complexity into it’s core components. However I was left wondering whether the way that web analytics data is being reported is becoming more important for some people that the accuracy, validity and potential usefulness of the data itself.

As is the way that these things happen, I then had a conversation with a digital media agency that I was advising. They were working with one of their clients to put in place a measurement programme. The agency was going to recommend that their client go with one of two potential systems and we were discussing which one they might recommend. One of the executives at the agency felt one of the systems would be better for their client because it had nicer looking reports and graphs and would be easier for the client to work with.

These two conversations set me thinking about the real utility of some of the reporting capabilities of web analytics systems that have been developed over the past couple of years. Most systems have reporting features like click overlays and dashboards. I began to ask myself some questions:

    • Are these visual reports like overlays and dashboards actually any benefit or are they a triumph of design over utility?
    • Are end users getting sidetracked by how pretty a report looks rather than focussing on what insight they are getting from it?
    • In the struggle to get executives to engage with web generated data, are the systems being developed to generate more eye candy that insight?

    I think that when it comes to click overlays that they are somewhat over-hyped as a tool and can provide a simplistic view of visitor behaviour on a site. I do believe that overlays have real applications and benefit in certain areas such as navigation analysis, usability and understanding online merchandising effectiveness. But they are also being used as a general reporting tool for executives because it’s believed that they make it easier for executives to understand the data. Making data prettier doesn’t necessarily make it easier to understand, or to do anything about.

    I decided to ask John Marshall, CEO of Clicktracks, what he thought. Clicktracks is the first tool I came across a few years ago that offered click overlays. As John could be considered to be the inventor of click overlays, I asked him whether he thought click overlays were increasingly being used beyond their brief.

    What John told me was: “Overlays are not very useful when looking at the average visitor. Seeing what people click on helps a little, but it’s not enough to drive a decision from because it’s usually pretty obvious.”

    So what’s the point of overlays?

    “Useful overlays come about when you segment visitors and can view those segments simultaneously. For example, viewing the average visitor in the overlay, another example would be the ability to split PPC traffic versus organic search traffic”

    So, it seemed to me that John was acknowledging that click overlays have limited use as a general reporting tool. Their power is as a diagnostic tool for analysts to understand different types of visitor behaviour. So, whilst they are easy on the eye, they potentially fail to deliver any meaning unless you begin to drill down into the numbers.

    I also wonder sometimes about the value of dashboards. Again, don’t get me wrong on this point. I’m a great believer in the visual representation of marketing data, I just wonder whether a “fuel gauge” is the right way to do it.

    Good dashboards are the ones where the relevant data is brought together in a meaningful way. They provide insight into the patterns and relationships between various metrics. For me, poor dashboards are ones where the concern is about how they look as opposed to what they say and how they can help executives better understand business performance. It’s a bit like 3D line charts in Excel, they look great but it’s impossible to fathom out what they are saying.

    So, try and look beyond the eye candy. Try and understand what these types of reports can really deliver to you. Overlays and dashboards are great pieces of functionality when used appropriately but do ensure that they are used in the right context for the right purpose. A picture might say a thousand words but they have to be the right words!

    More from Applied Insights

    See more: Articles
    See more: Web analytics

    Learn about our web analytics consulting Discover our innovative marketing applications Get to know Applied Insights