Choice Skills Mock Homepage

I spent some time working on a mock version of the homepage. I think there are some really neat things we have already talked about in class, and I wanted to incorporate some of that. I didn't do it in native HTML (since I'm still a noob in that area), but I did do a mock up in Paint - I love MS Paint... :)

If you click on the above picture you can go to a larger version. The gray sections are areas where I admit my failure as a graphic artist and I think we can do some cool things. Also, the "Free Mini-Course" button does not need to look as tacky as it does in my graphic, but I like the placement right there. Right before the fold is where I see the Products line being. As long as people can see products "coming" at the bottom of the page they will know what's up. Below the fold we can discuss how we want to handle the "Add to Cart" and "View More Info" buttons.

As for the top menu bar, I foresee this having the things we listed out in class along with the "View Cart" link.

I'm going to concede that I'm really not that great at web design, but I do think some of these things will work in getting the site to a better place.

A/B Testing

Over the last couple of days I have looked into A/B testing to prepare myself for some work on the Choice Skills website. Though A/B testing in theory does not seem like an incredibly difficult concept, I am realizing that the method with which we will implement it is of some concern.

The first decision that needs to be made is what exactly are we going to change? Before we test, we need to have an idea of some of the aspects of the website that need improvement (which must be based off of current SiteCatalyst data). Testing for the sake of testing will be worthless unless we have successfully found some key data in SiteCatalyst that compels us to tinker around with some of the layout or design of the Choice Skills website. I think we have found a couple of things, we'll just need to decide where to focus our energies at the beginning.

I suppose that brings me to the next point - we need to be very specific with what we are changing. Now that I think about it, a total overhaul on www.choiceskills.com may not be a terrible way to start (we've already found a number of things to improve), but typically an A/B test is implemented to test specific changes that can be measured individually. If you are changing a whole bunch of things, you never really know what modifications are causing the increase or decrease in conversions, and that can be a serious problem. If we're looking for complete optimization, changing individual pieces of the site will more effectively lead us towards success.

Considering that it is in our best interests to modify a single aspect of the site at a time, it is also extremely important that we designate a time frame for the testing we will be doing. In order to successfully complete a test, Omniture suggests about 500 conversions as an accurate measurement. With a budding site like www.choiceskills.com, we don't have the opportunity to effectively test 500 conversions at this point. Finding a valid period of time in which we can test how effective the modifications are is going to be extremely difficult.

Not only is the duration of the test a challenge, but deciding how we want to implement an A/B test is another important decision to make. The easiest way to do it would be to set up a Consecutive Test, where we run site A for a given period of time and then site B thereafter for a given period of time, sending all site traffic to only one location. The more effective test, however, is a Synchronous Test, where we run both sites simultaneously and send only a portion of our site traffic to the newer design. Deciding between these two testing methods will be important. Our choice will either be based on ease of implementation or on the quality of data we want to extract.

If we decide to run a Synchronous Test we will also need to decide how exactly we want to implement the test on SiteCatalyst. My thought is that we should use Custom eVars to track the information coming from the variations of the site. The Custom eVars may not be the most elegant and detailed implementation, but considering the short period of time with which we have to work, and the fact that choosing a Synchronous Test is a more difficult implementation to begin with, I vote that we try and keep it relatively simple at this stage in the game. The Custom eVars will simply allow us to track conversions coming from the specific pages (i.e. Homepage A, Homepage B).

Though I don't completely understand the implementation of A/B testing at this point, I think I have the right frame of mind in making sure that we are making correct decisions on how exactly we should design our test before worrying about the specific implementation. I don't want to spend a ton of time worrying about the data coming out of our testing unless I know I can trust it.

Choice Skills

So, in a relatively high level look at some of the Omniture data for Choice Skills I found a few things that I think are worth looking into. Obviously with a more thorough dig through the data I'm sure I could find a lot more, but I decided we have to start somewhere so why not start with some of the more obvious things... Anyway, let's take a look:

• Implementation is not tracking paid search keywords. This is the one that I feel is pretty important since the #1 expense for the site right now is keywords. I would be pretty concerned about seeing what the successful keywords are and how they are driving some of the more important KPI (such as conversions leading to revenue). This is an implementation issue more than anything else, so it should be pretty easy to iron out.
• Switching the homepage HTML file. Currently, the homepage is pretty blank and just serves as a short portal to direct the user to more important pages. Why not make the "teaching_social_skills.html" file the homepage? This is the page people are spending the most time on, is leading to the most revenue and is the top entry page. The current homepage is almost worthless in that there isn't anything there that cannot be added to the more useful Teaching Social Skills page.
• Increase the number of "Order Now" links and improve their placement. Currently the links to the order pages are not in very good places (at the bottom of the Teaching Social Skills page or by clicking "store" at the top). These can be place in several more locations, including the homepage, and in more strategic locations. I don't have specific recommendations, but this is something we can specifically design after some dialog on the topic of getting more people to the homepage.
• Standardize file download names: OK, I admit, this one is picky and little, but since SiteCatalyst is tracking the information on downloads, I am guessing it is a metric that Choice Skills is interested in tracking. If that information is important to track (and I think it's definitely worthwhile considering the goals for the website and the product) then it would be best to standardize the names of the files being downloaded. There are files abc.pdf and ABC.pdf with different data for each one. It's possible that the names were recently changed, but it doesn't look like it (but I've learned I'm not always correct when it comes to interpreting SiteCatalyst data).

I'm sure there is tons more that I'll be able to find as I become more familiar with the site, but I think these are a couple of things that can be attacked and worked on quickly. I was going to dig into some of the conversion information, but with little data to work with I did not think I could come away with many quality recommendations at this point.

I'm really excited for this project! I think it's fabulous that we have something real to work with, giving us a fabulous experience to work on our skills and to learn about implementation. With the generosity of Omniture and the opportunity to take this class, I've definitely been given another reason to be glad I'm at BYU.

Omniture's SiteCatalyst

It's been a while since I've had some time to get a post up, and one of the reasons why is because I have been spending a lot of time preparing for the Omniture Web Analytics Competition at BYU. This was my second semester participating in the competition, but unfortunately we worked with the same website's data. Though you'd think I had an advantage, being familiar with www.costumecraze.com, the Omniture people made it clear at the opening meeting that we needed to come in with new information this time around.

I can't share any specific information due to my signing a non-disclosure agreement, but I can talk a bit about the SiteCatalyst product! To be completely honest, SiteCatalyst is an absolutely fabulous tool that still needs a little work. Currently, you have great flexibility and customization available to you (though sometimes you end up paying quite a bit more for some of those options) as an Omniture customer. The task of keeping up with all of your key performance indicators is pretty simple with the advanced dashboards you can create. From my experience, which is admittedly little, SiteCatalyst blows the competition away in sophistication and the level of customization available. Granted, those who use Omniture's tools are paying out the nose, so SiteCatalyst better be good.

I do, however, have a few complaints. Omniture has broken up their reports into three main sections: Commerce, Traffic, and Paths. This is really helpful in some regards because it breaks up the many reports available into three different categories, yet I found myself extremely frustrated on several occasions. Because these three categories are very rigidly constructed, getting reports on data from both traffic and commerce is impossible (or at least hard enough to seem so). For example, should I want to find a report that gave me the percentage of site traffic that came from a specific domain and the revenue from that domain I would be out of luck. For some questions you can look up two different reports within their respective categories, but this is not always the case.

Without giving out specific information, I was trying to do research on CostumeCraze's global presence (where commerce and traffic were coming from geographically) and I could not find reports that really helped me drill down on the issue. SiteCatalyst provides traffic maps, showing which countries around the world are providing site traffic, but I could not find anything that would help me see the revenue that matched up with that traffic. The data already being tracked, so why can't I get to the information I need? There were ways to work around the problem, sort of, but I'd rather just have interoperability between the three categories.

Omniture does offer other services, and it's entirely possible that Discover or another piece of software solves some of the problems I see in SiteCatalyst. Unfortunately, I haven't had access to any of the more advanced tools, but I can probably research it a little bit.

Internet Pornography

(This is a cross-post from my personal blog.)

The great thing about the CP80 initiative is that it is about choice. It isn’t an argument that pornography should be made illegal in all forms or that laws should define that only adults may access it, but it is about giving a family or organization (I don’t want to leave business situations out of this) the choice of whether or not they want to allow pornographic content to come across their wires.

For those who are unaware, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and during the Priesthood session of the October 2006 General Conference, President Hinckley asked us all (I’m assuming much of what he said applies to women as well) to “Rise Up, O Men of God”. During that talk he read a letter that was written to him by a brother who was (or at least I’m hoping I can use the past tense) heavily addicted to pornography. In the letter, the brother pleads, “…please plead with the brethren of the Church not only to avoid but eliminate the sources of pornographic material in their lives.” President Hinckley later tells us “…there must be self-discipline enough to turn it off.” Yes, I believe he was using the pronoun it to refer to the computer itself, but if it were possible, I think he would prefer we turn the pornographic material itself off.

The Family Movie Act is a great example of a way in which the US Government has given the family a say on what they can do to control media entering their home. The Family Movie Act is not about forcing rated R movies out of the house, or about forcing the movie industry to censor their products, but it gives families a choice about the kinds of media they watch. The CP80 solution to internet pornography is basically to require website to "rate" themselves just like movies are forced to be rated from G to PG to PG-13 to R, etc… Once a website is “rated” by switching to a different port, families can now decide whether or not they want that kind of media entering their homes.

There is no limit to freedom of speech, since those who want to access pornography will be able to, and it will not make it any harder for people to get to their website (the URL isn’t going to change, they’ll probably just be forced to have a landing page – something many digital certificate companies require for certification anyway [my roommate works at DigiCert]). Oh, and as for enforcement? I’m sure the government is OK with fining people like crazy if they violate; when do they not like collecting a lot of cash, they just need to make the fine hefty enough.

Just because it’s hard or seems like a large task doesn’t mean we should just give up. I don’t look to take away the right that others have to indulge in whatever they would like to indulge in, but I would very much like the ability to keep destructive materials out of my home. I have seen too many families, marriages, and lives destroyed over pornography to the point that I barely trust myself enough to say that I will never give in to it. Think about how much time you spend on your computer everyday! Think of how many idle hours you have spent just floating from one site to another online! What’s to say that Satan won’t hit you someday with a temptation strong enough to steer you or a loved one to something you would never partake of under normal circumstances. We will all face temptation, but I think it is wise counsel to eliminate as many situations and opportunities as possible when it comes to serious transgression.

We’re the ones who can make a difference because we actually understand the technology behind the magic that is the internet. If we can’t stand as disciples of Jesus Christ on something like this, when will we stand on his side? I don’t know what legislation will pass, I don’t know what will happen in the future, but I think true discipleship asks us to stand up in situations like this. We wanted the ability to choose before we came to earth, shouldn’t we continue to fight for it now that we’re here?

Web Log Analysis

From what I've looked at by digging through Wikipedia, web log analysis tools are basically simple web analytics tools. Having used SiteCatalyst in the BYU Web Analytics Competition, sponsored by Omniture, I have a pretty good understanding of what a quality web analytics software package can do.

Web logs work a little differently than the method SiteCatalyst uses to grab it's information. A log file is created directly on the server that hosts the website, and those files contain information about the http request and the machine, browser, etc... that made the request. SiteCatalyst works by embedding some javascript into a page that creates an image with a few pixels of data (I'm pretty sure, I could be way wrong on this) that is sent directly to a server owned and operated by Omniture. To keep the story short, it sounds like web logs work in a very similar way, but there must be some sort of limitation to their use that encourages companies like Omniture and other analytics service providers (ASPs) to grab a little more information than just the basic log.

To be honest, I'm not terribly interested in some of the really technical details of HTTP and web logs, but I find the high level usage of the tools to be relatively interesting.

E-Biz Wiki

I've spent a ton of time over the last few days researching emerging technologies and their impact on the future of e-business. Honestly, there is a ton of stuff going on but it was difficult for me to dig through some of the articles I was reading to find technology that would really make an impact on how business is done.

The area I ended up spending a lot of time learning about was wireless technology. I was very unfamiliar with WiMAX before I started, but I feel like I have a pretty good handle on it right now and the possibilities that it provides seem endless. I really think that it will change a lot of the things we do in the business world and will greatly increase the speed of communication that we will have available to us! I guess I just have to hope that the specs are right and that it will deliver as promised.

After my research, I modified some articles on the BYU E-Business Wiki. The pages I modified are as follows:

• Wireless
• Emerging Technologies

I also plan on doing a broader treatment of WiMAX on the WiMAX page, but I will need to do a bit more research before I can do that. I would also like to do some more research on the future of internet security, which I started delving into before I became super busy with other things today.

This is my first experience with a Wiki as well, so I was pretty proud of myself for being able to figure out the formatting quickly. I really enjoyed myself... I enjoy researching technologies and envisioning what they can do for us in the future, so I'm sure I will continue contributing to the E-Business wiki for a while.