How can website hits statistics be helpful to improve usability?
usability
Solution
Here's a second answer as the former was only about response time statistics.
The `ref` query string allows to identify the sources, especially of people entering a Conversion funnel. So you might make statements like "N $ of revenue come from users clicking link X on page Y". Now you could try to modify link X to X1 and see if it increases revenue from this page. That would be your first step into A/B Testing and Multivariate Analysis. Google Website Optimizer is a tool exactly for this purpose.
Problem
Have you noticed that almost every links in facebook have `ref` query string? I belive that, with that `ref`, facebook somehow track and study their user behaviour. this could be their secret recipe of making a better usability. So, I am trying out the same thing, change http://a.com/b.aspx to http://a.com/b.aspx?ref=c and log every hits into a table. ``` ======================================================================== userid | page | ref | response_time | dtmTime ======================================================================== 54321 | profile.aspx | birthday | 123 | 2009-12-23 11:05:00 12345 | compose.aspx | search | 456 | 2009-12-23 11:05:02 54321 | payment.aspx | gift | 234 | 2009-12-23 11:05:01 12345 | chat.aspx | search | 567 | 2009-12-23 11:05:03 ..... | ............ | ........ | ... | ................... ``` I think it's a good start. I just don't know what to do with these informations. Is there any appropriate methodology to process these informations?