Update: Google Analytics Team, please don’t do this anymore. I just turned on the ‘compare to past’ feature and noticed that you are doubling up series on the sparklines. This is a big no-no as far as I am concerned because the sparkline with mutliple series on it just ends up looking like a squiggle. The data from the second series actually becomes chart junk!

If your a visual analysis wonk like me you probably couldn’t help but be excited with the new version of Google Analytics and the introduction of Sparklines. To me, it comes across as a major endorsement of sparklines as a business tool.

But, for this implementation to be a useful endorsement of sparklines, they have to show value as a tool and I don’t think the GA implementation is quite there - yet. Remember the new version of GA is in Beta so the team has lots of opportunity to improve.

From the Visitor Summary Report…

In this case, the shaded area is not useful, it’s distracting. The reason for this is relatively simple - it’s shading the area under the curve (plotted line) in the case of a sparkline, the shaded area should code more or different information. I’d really like so see this shaded area represent some UCL and LCL data, for instance the standard deviation (plus or minus) from the mean of all values.

The value currently associated with the sparklines are the total or total average for the period represented when they should be the current (or most recent) value.

I’d like to see some data markers on the chart - current value, high water mark and low water mark. Of course, the markers should be color coded to their value on the right. So, for instance the most current data point marker could be red and the current value would also be in red. The high and low water marks would be different colors and their associated text would be those colors to tie them together.

If that’s as clear as mud, here’s a quick example:

Notice that my example is a bit longer, this is because Tufte recommends shooting for a 45 degree angle on the line slopes (it eases understanding)

1. The gray area represents the ‘normal’ distribution of visitors - the "biorhythm" as Avinash would say and it is the mean +/- 1 Standard Deviation
2. Both the oldest point (starting point) and newest point (end point) are marked in red
3. The watermarks (high and low) are marked in green
4. For each of the data points that are marked (except for the starting point) an associated value is presented to the right and is color coded so that associations between the chart and the values are easily made

Finally, I’d like to see the sparklines be more contextual to the report or dashboard that they are in. For instance, I’m not quite sure why total page views is reported in the Visitor report. Also, is that average page views per visit or page views per visitor? I’d rather see average visits per visitor and average usage days per visitor (daily visitors divided by absolute unique visitors) than some of these other metrics.

What do you think of the Google Analytics sparklines?

First of all, thank you to Avinash and the rest of the Google Analytics team for getting me into the new version of G.A. while I was at Emetrics. Avinash, in particular seemed interested in my comments on the new visualizations, so without further ado, here is some feedback for the team.

I’d really love to start off by talking about the addition of sparklines, but I just can’t because I am too distracted by the big trend chart.

Here’s what that looks like:

Let’s take a quick moment to compare that to a Google Finance chart:

Notice that they are both ‘web 2.0-ey’ and ‘ajaxey’. However, the GA chart seems to have gone a little over the top with the very thick trend line and large diameter data point markers.

It’s worth noting that the Google Finance chart offers multiple ways to traverse (interact) with this data. I can both traverse and zoom (or unzoom) the chart at the bottom as well as zoom the chart from the top-left text links. In the GA chart my only option for interacting with the data is through the pull down menus at the top right (one for date(s) and one for dimension which are kind of kludgey if you ask me - they don’t respond -hhmmm- smoothly and they rearrange the page whereas the controls in the GF charts don’t require the page to be reordered and react both quickly and smoothly.

None of these are my biggest criticism, the simple fact is that the GA chart with the heavy line and large radius markers makes me feel like it’s a kid’s chart, that is a chart designed for a kid.

I find it very odd that the GA Dashboard chart is liquid - that is it stretches to fit the browser width. This changes the horizontal scale of the chart and can either obscure important trend details or create artifacts in the visualization - a fixed width chart that is appropriately scaled would be better.

Maybe it’s just me but I actually feel patronized by the Google Analytics chart like I’m so clueless that I wouldn’t notice the trends or the data points if they weren’t pessimistically obvious. I *think* that I actually like the roll-over data labels because it puts the detailed data into the chart as opposed to how the GF chart updates the information way up in the right hand corner is you hover over the map. But, again the heavy black border just screams ‘MAKE SURE YOU LOOK AT ME AND IF YOU DON’T THEN YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON HERE!’.

It’s not that I’m totally in love with the GF charts, as noted above I’d really like to see the detail data down next to the chart in a data label and while I theoretically like the idea of marking key news events on the chart, the implementation can get quite messy and distracting. Unfortunately I don’t have a good solution in mind yet but I’d really like to see it cleaned up.

For the GA chart, I’d recommend:

1. Don’t talk down to the user, move towards a more elegant presentation like that of Google Finance
2. Build in interactive controls like the ones used in GF
3. Make the chart fixed-width, in this case liquidity is bad
4. Potentially allow for multiple dimensions to be charted (within reason)

Ok, that’s enough about the dashboard chart, sparklines will have to wait for another day.

By the way, overall I like the redesign of GA - for me it is generally more intuitive to navigate and use.

I’d love to hear what you think…

Like so many other in our clique, I’m heading to San Fran for Emetrics.
I’ll be at the WAA General Meeting and Reception Sunday evening and at the event Monday - Wednesday.

This will be my second year at Emetrics, but unfortunately I am not speaking this time (or perhaps fortunately for those who remember my session from last year).

After a few-month hiatus, the tiny-tot voice recog blogger is back!

Enjoy!