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Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics

usefathom.com

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Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics

#21
post #16

> Want to see a demo of Fathom? View our live stats here (user: demo@demo.com, password: demo) This is UX feedback from a lazy user. Why make me type in a login and password? Especially one that I have to remember from the previous screen? It's trivial effort to just setup an auto login based on some query string parameter right? As in, url?demo=true results in either populating the login/password fields so all I hav…

I always struggle with this type of response on UX issues. They always seem to think the 'how' is important, and that the length of time that takes is also important. It's not. You don't need to explain how to do it, you don't need to make an argument on time to implement - unless the time to implement is insanely high. Use the language of business: You are losing prospects by creating work for them. Resolving this w…

I've found in most (all?) aspects of my life, trying to tell other people how to deliver feedback is usually the wrong approach. The better thing is to take the feedback regardless of how it's delivered and learn to interpret. Things are implied. Feedback on A, may actually be point at a problem with Z. Sometimes the correct way to interpret is to discard. The source of feedback is not going to connect those dots for you.

That said, I see your point but I will try to defend mine. Your language of business sentence is basically implied by the pure existence of my complaint right? Should I have to type every implication out in order to provide any feedback? And this being a tech place for tech people I wanted to emphasize how simple it would be to correct (I don't really even know if the creator/app owner is reading, so it's more of a general feedback for other people who build products.) Highly subjective either way. Hell, the app owner could argue they don't care about people that don't manually type in the info because they're not really potential customers. I don't know if I'd fully agree, but it could be a form of lead qualification in which your business language feedback would not hold weight. It's at least somewhat true, because I was just curiously kicking the tires. I have no use for this product.

Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics

#22
This doesn't come even close to the type of data you can get from Google Analytics. It's nice as a free/open source service, but the power just isn't there. Even piwik/matomo is vastly inferior to what kind of data you can track and visualize in Google Analytics.

Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics

#23

> Want to see a demo of Fathom? View our live stats here (user: demo@demo.com, password: demo) This is UX feedback from a lazy user. Why make me type in a login and password? Especially one that I have to remember from the previous screen? It's trivial effort to just setup an auto login based on some query string parameter right? As in, url?demo=true results in either populating the login/password fields so all I hav…

As a counterpoint, having to log in makes it feel more like a real live demo, and not some mockup from the marketing department.

Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics

#24
post #16

> Want to see a demo of Fathom? View our live stats here (user: demo@demo.com, password: demo) This is UX feedback from a lazy user. Why make me type in a login and password? Especially one that I have to remember from the previous screen? It's trivial effort to just setup an auto login based on some query string parameter right? As in, url?demo=true results in either populating the login/password fields so all I hav…

I always struggle with this type of response on UX issues. They always seem to think the 'how' is important, and that the length of time that takes is also important. It's not. You don't need to explain how to do it, you don't need to make an argument on time to implement - unless the time to implement is insanely high. Use the language of business: You are losing prospects by creating work for them. Resolving this w…

Sorry, just have to do this..

--- I always struggle with this type of response on feedback. They seem to think that how feedback is given is important, and that the phrasing also is important.

They don't need to explain the business impact, you don't need to use the perfect words, unless it's insanely subtle.

Use the language that takes the least amount of time and effort. We don't want you to forego on giving feedback, since that may push you to not give feedback at all, resolving in substantial lost in quality, and contribute to the ultimate destruction of your product. The fact that you share insightful feedback is a lot more important than the exact words.

-- It's the job of the business people to listen and analyze the business impact of things.

Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics

#25
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may have been true at one point, but I don't think it's true anymore. https://www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245 https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites Interesting aside: Google Analytics customers are required to prominently state that their site uses Google Analytics. I suspect many, if not most, customers don't do this.

It's admittedly confusing, but I think I'm still right and that you may be conflating policies about other google services. From your second link, which is specific to Analytics, it says: > What is the data used for? > Google uses Google Analytics data to provide the Google Analytics measurement service to customers. Identifiers such as cookies and app instance IDs are used to measure user interactions with a custome…

I'm pretty sure GA data doesn't intermingle with AdWords targeting profiles in a default configuration.

If that was true, then Google wouldn't consider it a violation of its ToS for HIPAA-covered entities to use its analytics product.

"If you are (or become) a Covered Entity or Business Associate under HIPAA, you may not use Google Analytics for any purpose or in any manner involving Protected Health Information unless you have received prior written consent to such use from Google."

Source: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6366371?hl=en

Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics

#28

No complaints about the little I can see of the service here, and the point of protecting the privacy of our users is well-taken. But at the same time, stats packages have been available for year simply by parsing your server logs (awstats, etc). Old solutions still work, even if the problem space is evolving in new directions.

Haven't touched awstats for the best part of a decade. What is the new shiny on these server log tools?

Why is it that not one SEO organisation/company/snake-oil salesperson ever thinks to look at the server logs? One problem that Progressive Web App/server worker solves is catching those messages that don't get sent to Google Analytics and making sure they are sent. You would think that server stats offer a level of truthiness that SEO types would be interested in.

In theory you could do backend tracking, e.g. default server logs and not run cookies on the frontend until the site visitor does something requiring state, e.g. adding to cart. Then you could throw up the 'cookie notice' and aggregate their previous page visits to get the data needed to see where the sales funnel is working, even de-anonymising it so you know more about a given customer and their browsing habits.

Re: Fathom – Simple, trustworthy website analytics

#29
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's admittedly confusing, but I think I'm still right and that you may be conflating policies about other google services. From your second link, which is specific to Analytics, it says: > What is the data used for? > Google uses Google Analytics data to provide the Google Analytics measurement service to customers. Identifiers such as cookies and app instance IDs are used to measure user interactions with a custome…

I'm pretty sure GA data doesn't intermingle with AdWords targeting profiles in a default configuration. If that was true, then Google wouldn't consider it a violation of its ToS for HIPAA-covered entities to use its analytics product. "If you are (or become) a Covered Entity or Business Associate under HIPAA, you may not use Google Analytics for any purpose or in any manner involving Protected Health Information unle…

I don't see how one thing follows from the other. GA is obviously not intended for storing Protected Health Information.
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