Our Fascination with Numbers

I recently added Google Analytics to one of my websites and I've become instantly addicted to the constant feed of numbers. I realize though that this is nothing new, we are barraged with statistics everywhere. Whether it be sports games on TV or the stock ticker widgets many are glued to. I'm glad in away that the website statistics feed is not real-time otherwise I'm not sure if I would get any work done.

My fascination with this google analytics package stemmed more from the slick and organized dashboard presentation (see screenshot below) than the numbers themselves. Although there are all sorts of statistics for each page from the number of visitors, bounce rates to visit duration the mix of tabular and graphical presentation provides keen insight into the performance and usage of the site. This also allows you to infer user behaviour; so for instance if you had a lot of visitors for the home page but minimal hits on the sign up confirmation page you could infer that visitors are discouraged from signing up for whatever reason (bad form design, aesthetics etc).

Now google analytics is just for website tracking, this idea has been extended to all aspects of business from inventory control to customer service calls. The power of real time statistics and customer behavior inferences quickly turns into increased R.O.I which is why business analytics is such a rapidly growing industry.