My tenth grade English teacher taught me that every word an author writes is deliberate. She chooses every noun, verb, article, and adjective with precision to create a masterpiece. We as readers will never know just how much work goes…
Blog (page 3)
Happy Fun Time with Google Spreadsheets
About three years ago, Google introduced custom dashboards to Google Analytics. And I rejoiced. I was more than ready to cast off MS Excel for the bounty of beautiful, custom dashboards. But it didn’t last. This feature lost its luster.…
In Defense of Navigation
For several years I’ve been hearing variations on the theme “Navigation is dead.” As screen-size and attention spans get smaller, we shove navigation out of the way. We’ve ditched our dropdowns. We stick it in the footer. We hide it…
Documentation is Hard
Documentation. It’s not fun. It’s not pretty. And most definitely not easy. Writing documentation for online projects is seldom enjoyable. You just want to move forward and build the darn thing. And by the time you’re done, you don’t want…
DMAW Digital Day Forum Follow-ups
I just want to say thank you for everyone who attended my sessions at the DMAW Digital Day Forum today. Here’s a summary of some of the things we talked about: A good data visualization shows the big picture, but…
Confession: I’ve Never Studied Web Design
My first exposure to website design was in 1996. It was a two hour HTML class, and then made a small website for my work-study job. With just a few curves and bends, I’ll soon be approaching my 20th year…
Client-Worthy Metrics
Almost every digital consultant that I’ve ever worked with or seen work is dealing in data of some kind. It might be conversion rates, open rates, or demographic data. One question that we struggle with is what data to present…
Take Note of Annotations
This week, I gave a presentation at the WordPress DC Meetup. I talked about using Google Analytics to head off SEO disasters. We talked a bit about the Mobilegeddon, now under way. I suggested that everyone use an annotation in…
Easier != Cakewalk
Google Tag Manager (GTM) is one of the most empowering things to happen to the analytics community. GTM takes the much of the onus off of a developers when it comes to custom analytics implementations. No longer are we long…