New Google Analytics: Not Too User-friendly

May 11th, 2007 | RSS Feed

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Hot on the heels of the Google Analytics makeover which we reported two days ago followed a similar transformation by other smaller sites.

As with ever new product, there was bound to be clashing opinion and one new user rants about the new interface not being user friendly for newcomers. Besides, the new main dashboard graph no longer shows visits and pageviews together. Viewing pageviews is not so easy, considering one has to change to another graph making it utterly impossible to compare trends. Also, in the new version, one cannot view the statistics for the entire year. Whereas, previously all it required was one click.

The product is still very new. With the previous comes more additional buttons. Perhaps, all it needs is some good old practice and getting used to.

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Comments

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17074 Responses2007-05-11+08%3A39%3A34Navneet+Kaushal to “New Google Analytics: Not Too User-friendly”

postingit Says:
May 14th, 2007 at 16:31
well it is not to friendly for old users either.. with large sites it is a mess.. here are just some of the bug and issues found

sorry cannot disagree more — have you tried to actually use it?

1. Buggy in Firefox
2. Graphics are too large and text is equally as obnoxious
3. Data that used to be viewable on the front page are now 3-5 levels deep
ex. New maps – I used to be able to look at the executive summary and see where people came from and numbers right there. Now I have to do region/country/city before I can see anything – this is huge esp when monitoring activity of 500k visitors
4. no network location cross-reference data
– includes kw (no data)
5. Cannot see all goal data at the same time
6. Cannot compare visits, pageviews and conversions at the same time
7. Not organized well – things do not follow a logical progression
8. Items are difficult to locate
9. No real navigational elements
10.Can only view 100 items at a time instead of 500 not bad on small sites, but on a large site where we get 1/2 a million visitors a month it is severely restrictive
11. cannot sort data at all.. if it gives you back the lowest ranked kw there is now way to switch to the largest.. so with 55k kw's i have no way to access data.. that is simple.. etc etc etc…

and this is just from the first 15 mins of using it.

I will go back to the old til they force the new, but I think they made a horrible mistake – along the lines of IE 7 – it is a lousy product! Only people who use analytics for cursory data will be ok with this – if you are a heavy user for a corporate or high trafficked site these changes are going to severely limit your business model. I think it is time to reconsider our options.
postingit Says:
May 14th, 2007 at 16:31
oops did not mean the disagree comment for you .. obviously you agree..
Navneet Kaushal Says:
May 14th, 2007 at 22:28
Well even the pdf exported doesn't seems to be working for me!
JaneSmith Says:
May 18th, 2007 at 23:57
Thank goodness a voice of reason — so many blogs about this product sound like kool-aid drinkers.. they say wow amazing — short of a masterpiece – but umm it crashes my browser every time i use it .. makes a head start spinning thank you for the honest look at the much overhyped product!