I am very pleased to announce the launch of a market-leading data collection capability for Webtrends. The addition of this API to our capabilities is another example of why Webtrends is the most powerful, open and elegant solution in the industry.

Keeping with our commitment to gather your feedback and deliver the most relevant of tools, we are making this new capability available in Beta for all of our customers and partners to use now.  Please help us help you by getting involved today. Push the limits! Get creative! Then let us know where we can improve on the capabilities. We will continue to evolve the API. Anything that connects to the internet is fair game.

As you, our customers, continue to expand your online presence beyond your web sites, it is our responsibility to grow our own measurement capabilities ahead of your evolving needs. Our data collection API is a critical addition to your arsenal of tools for collecting new data. The primary purpose for the API is to track behavior across various media that access the internet where traditional site tagging isn’t possible or an optimal fit.

Interested in more details? A full overview is available on our Developer Network. Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions, comments, or to explore opportunities to leverage this exciting new capability.

In the previous two articles*, I introduced the newly redesigned Webtrends custom tracking-code creation tool called Tag Builder and then provided some background into the user centered design methodology, Paper Prototyping, used to construct the flow of the application. In this post, I will highlight the most significant design improvements that defined the new look of Tag Builder and influence products to come.

1. Palette

The most noticeable change with the new Tag Builder is the monochromatic color palette. It is sparse, simple, and gets right to the point. As we push the design of Webtrends applications forward, we are intent on establishing a professional, concise, and highly engineered look and feel. Think German automobile. Think professional photography equipment. Webtrends products are professional products. The palette of charcoal, magnesium, and white dominate the design while hints of litho blue and stop sign red reveal themselves on hover states and error messaging. Color is still there, just reserved for when it is effective.

Color palettes (before and after)

In an addition to Tag Builder, you may have also noticed that the brand identity for Webtrends received a facelift. The webtrends.com website reflects this and is being rolled out across all of our marketing materials. The new wordmark is modern. The new palette, is complimentary to Tag Builder. Both are heavily monochromatic but the modern blue and warm grays have a much stronger presence with the outbound marketing while the product reserves its use of color for important indicators and highlights. This sophistication in coordination is like the outfits of a well dressed Hollywood couple attending the Oscars. Tag Builder was released before the branding update was revealed and so you will see future refinements to product design to reflect alignment.

2. Grid

The grid has received a lot of attention in the web design community in the past couple of years (thanks to pioneers like Khoi Vinh at the New York Times). The grid has been used for decades to organize typographical information in print so that blocks of type define the geometry and patterns of the design. This allows for the elimination of ornamental design clutter and reduces design to its essential elements. The new Tag Builder uses a 960 based grid and this allowed us to simplify the design dramatically. It may seem a bit open at first with excess whitespace, but as soon as you interact with Tag Builder, you’ll notice that the whitespace gives way to hover help text that no longer requires a click just to get the basic concept of each fieldset.

Tag Builder and the grid

3. Language

Because the previous Tag Builder required this additional click to access any help, the field labels ended up being sentence like in places and overly descriptive. This created a wordy design that left the user with a lack of confidence and uncertainty as it required more comprehension even for basic fields. The new labels are short and conversational in tone. This is easier to comprehend and it leads to a more confident user. For instance, a certain label read, “Single first-party cookie (use one first-party cookie across the primary and each subdomain: Cookie domain attribute.” In the new interface it now reads, “The site domain you want to track,” followed by the entry field. When the user hovers over the field, hover help appears and provides the user with an opportunity to confirm their assumptions as well as providing a link if the user wishes to explore the topic in depth. In addition to improving the readability of the labels and hover help, we also improved the error messaging for improperly filled out fields. The language short, concise, and straight to the point.

4. Indicator Dots

One of the most troublesome design challenges we faced with the new Tag Builder was how to clearly communicate completed fields when only one tab was visible at a time. We solved this challenge with a unique solution that we named, “indicator dots.” We noticed in the prototyping tests that users would click through the tabs a few times just as a driver in a car trying to make a left hand turn onto a busy street swings their head back and forth. With the indicator dots, now they at least knew which tabs that had completed some information in. This challenge grew as we realized that there was no clear way to message the user if they had improperly filled out a field on one tab when clicking the “Build Tag” button. So, we also leveraged the indicator dots to turn red when there is a field error on a tab. In the end, the indicator dots communicate to the user three things; how many choices are there on a tab, how many were filled out, and which fields contain errors when submitting the form.

Indicator dots

5. Confirmation

A related challenge to the indicator dots was the lack of any confirmation before the user clicked the “Build Tag” submit button. The previous version of Tag Builder directly triggered the “download” function of the browser when this was clicked. This worked ok in Internet Explorer but in Firefox and Safari, the download function didn’t allow the user to name the file. We realized we needed a confirmation page that condensed the information related to that particular tag setup on one screen paired with the option to name the zip package.

Confirmation page

Summary

We made many additional improvements with Tag Builder and I hope if you are a user, you have noticed an improved workflow. In the next article, I’ll walk through the changes we made regarding the web standards architecture.

I’d love to hear your feedback (thoughts, comments, questions, or critiques) on this new design direction.

*When I set out to write this five part series, I didn’t intend for it to be as drawn out. A new baby and product design improvements beyond Tag Builder are keeping me quite busy.

Flash tracking as with AJAX is done through calls to dcsMultiTrack. However because a Flash applet file (.swf) is embedded into a page as a self contained object this means we must use a different method to make calls to other elements such as the logging script within the page.

We can use any event in Flash to trigger a dcsMultiTrack call; video completions, slide views, loading percentage indicators, clicks, drags, drops and more. The most common or at least traditional method for calling dcsMultiTrack within Flash uses the getURL function:

on(release){
getURL(”javascript:dcsMultiTrack(’parameter1′,’value1′,’parameter2′,’value2′);”);
}

This code would be added to each button that needs to be tracked. If you’re smart you won’t want to rewrite the multiTrack onto every event handler call for every button across your site. It makes sense as with did with AJAX to use a more modular approach. Taking the getURL method above and placing the call into its own ActionScript function, then calls to the event handlers can also be passed along with parameters to this function.

function trackEvent(value1,value2){
getURL(”javascript:dcsMultiTrack(’parameter1′,’”+value1+”‘,’parameter2′, ‘”+value1+”‘);”);
}

An alternate to getURL is the externalInterface method:
import flash.external.ExternalInterface;

function trackEvent(value1,value2):Void
{
If (ExternalInterface.available)
{
ExternalInterface.call(”dcsMultiTrack”,’Parameter1′,value1,’parameter2′,valu e2);
}
}

Where scalability may be a factor the externalInterface method is the best probably the best choice. In addition to being scalable, externalInterface is the new “best practice” method for page/Flash object interactions. It allows data to be passed in and out of the Flash object (a getURL is a static one-way command). Because of the added flexibility, this method will allow new interactions to happen as they are developed.

Should the externalinterface method be attached to all event handlers enabling you to collect information on any and every interaction? Or prehaps limited only to duistinct content loads/views within the applet? And what should you be passing as parameters? Why not join us to discuss this at Engage 2009 in our Workgroup. Look forward to seeing you there.

You Asked, We Acted.
Today we launched a few improvements to WebTrends Tag Builder. Based on input from this blog we were able to quickly make some changes to a couple of issues you called out.

•   We didn’t update referrer appropriately when off-site links were clicked. Now these are passed with every off-site click.
•   We were a little too picky about file extensions. File extensions you specify on the Click Event Tracking tab are now case-insensitive.

Auto Detection of Paid Search for AdWords
Are you interested in tracking paid search for Google AdWords in your WebTrends reporting without having to deal with additional setup? Now our tag detects if referrals from Google originate from paid or organic placements without requiring you to set an additional parameter. This does require that you have the “Destination URL Autotagging” option enabled in your AdWords account. We will keep you posted as we automatically detect other engines in the future.

Integrated Tagging for Quantcast Publisher
Tag Builder now includes Quantcast as an option when you are setting up your WebTrends tagging. Quantcast is a no-charge solution that provides access to detailed geographic, demographic and lifestyle data about visitors to your site (including age, race, sex, income range, children status and other sites visited).

With WebTrends and Quantcast you can:
•    Compare your traffic acquisition strategy to competing sites
•    Get insight into how your competitors are getting traffic
•    Use insight on high-value populations to move ad dollars
•    Adjust your ad buy mid-stream – see what demographics are responding

For more details check out the Quantcast site.

Please keep the feedback coming. We are listening! Whether you are a software or On Demand customer, we’re always working hard to improve your experience with WebTrends.  Let us know how we’re doing -  from within the products,  here on the blog, user forums, Twitter or contact any of us directly.

Why Twitter? I Don’t Get It! If you’ve asked that question yourself or heard it from others – This NYTimes article on the Brave New World of Digital Intimacy helps to explain the transformation on tapping the collective consciousness. Personally – I have a love/hate relationship with Twitter and I’d bet many of you feel the same way.

Love that I can keep up with many of my friends and coworkers so that when I see them in person, know a bit more of what is going on with them and we automatically start our conversations at another level. 

Hate that many people, including folks I’ve never met, know more about my day-to-day life than my sister who lives a few states away.

Love that when I have something that I think is interesting to say, I can find the right 140 characters (or less) to express my thoughts.

Hate when I don’t have time to keep up with those that I do follow.

I spend too much time checking Twitter updates.  I don’t have enough time to keep up with Twitter updates.  I installed the TwitterFox plug-in for Firefox and Twitterberry on my Blackberry because I feel like I need to keep up with what’s going on.  But I uninstalled Tweetdeck because there is way too much going on.  I’m usually pretty decisive about things, but not Twitter.  I love it, I hate it, I have a strong opinion that changes fairly often.

But here’s the thing: it doesn’t matter what I think about Twitter. And it doesn’t matter what you think about Twitter. As a product manager I live every day by the saying that while my personal opinion might be interesting, it is completely and totally irrelevant.  It doesn’t matter what we think about Twitter.  What does matter is that your customers, prospects, supporters, and detractors are all using it.  They are saying good things, they are saying bad things.  People who want to learn about your company are using Twitter to learn more about your company’s products and services.  And from these 140 character snippits, they are going to your web site.  Think about that – they are going to search.twitter.com (formerly Summerize), typing in a keyword or phrase that you’ve worked really hard at getting to the top of Google search, and finding a ton of information about your company on a site full of 140 character microblogs.  And by the way, you don’t necessarily have a lot of control about what’s being said.

At WebTrends – not only is there Twitter talk, there is Twitter listening.  We spend a lot of time using all of the new, modern, social media tools out there so we are better marketers ourselves. While some of us think we’re doing some really cool, modern things regarding social media – it also freaks some of us out.  We know we have to do our best to measure our effectiveness and we know how hard it can be to measure that effectiveness. (just ask our own social media team how they are tracking the space)To make that measurement easier we employ a social media tagging strategy and the newly available Twitter tracking.

Click for Full Size Screenshot

We recently added tracking Twitter as a search engine in WebTrends Analytics reports.  It’s already in our On Demand offering, or if you use our software you can download an installer to upgrade your installation.  It’s probably not going to be at the top of your search engine reports, but you can use our reporting’s search feature to see what keywords and phrases people are using to find your site – what they are saying on Twitter.

Now -  if I could just sum up all these thoughts up in 140 characters …  If I only had the time.