"Visitor" experience
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valerie
Nov 9, 2009, 6:48:59 PM11/9/09
to WikiEducator
Thinking about "visitors" and "residents" - most of use are
"residents" as well put our names on stuff. Our contributions are
tracked in the wiki in history and discussions, and in the group
posts. WE are all busily creating open content, sometimes for our own
needs, somethings as our contribution to making the world a better
place through education. Stephen Downes recently linked to an article
about funding content creators who are doing a great job of generating
content. But he thought perhaps the funding should go to the folks who
need to use the content. This got me wondering...
What about the "visitors" and the WE visitor experience? Is anyone
using any of the WE content besides the creators and their explicit
intended learners? Do educators or learners just come along and
satisfy their needs for learning resources by poking around in
WikiEducator? Do we know who they are? Do we know how they found
WikiEducator? Do we know how they found the content they needed?
Are there specific needs "out there" that are being met by WE content?
Do we know what they are? Do we know if there are specific needs that
are not currently met by WE content, but could be if that content were
available?
Are WE doing enough for "visitors"? Can WE do better?
Your thoughts?
..Valerie
"residents" as well put our names on stuff. Our contributions are
tracked in the wiki in history and discussions, and in the group
posts. WE are all busily creating open content, sometimes for our own
needs, somethings as our contribution to making the world a better
place through education. Stephen Downes recently linked to an article
about funding content creators who are doing a great job of generating
content. But he thought perhaps the funding should go to the folks who
need to use the content. This got me wondering...
What about the "visitors" and the WE visitor experience? Is anyone
using any of the WE content besides the creators and their explicit
intended learners? Do educators or learners just come along and
satisfy their needs for learning resources by poking around in
WikiEducator? Do we know who they are? Do we know how they found
WikiEducator? Do we know how they found the content they needed?
Are there specific needs "out there" that are being met by WE content?
Do we know what they are? Do we know if there are specific needs that
are not currently met by WE content, but could be if that content were
available?
Are WE doing enough for "visitors"? Can WE do better?
Your thoughts?
..Valerie
Wayne Mackintosh
Nov 9, 2009, 7:37:30 PM11/9/09
to wikied...@googlegroups.com
Hi Valerie
Great post! I agree -- we're not doing enough to welcome and support the visitor "experience".
Looking at our site statistics, 84% of our traffic is sourced from search engines finding our pages.
The visitor percentage may be a little overstated given that Mediawiki's standard search engine is not the best in the world and many educators search WikiEducator using Google by including "Wikieducator" in the google search query. From our statistics, this practice would account for about 2% of our traffic sourced from search engines -- consequently, we have a high percentage of "visitors" coming to WikiEducator through search engines.
On average -- users coming to WikiEducator via search engines visit approximately 2.5 pages per visit (compared with an average of 18 pages per visit for users including "WikiEducator" in the search query.)
Valerie -- in answer to your questions:
Are WE doing enough for "visitors"? -- No, I don't think we're doing enough :-(.
Can WE do better? -- Yes, WE can always do better :-)
Earlier this year -- I posted a few open questions to our list thinking about whether we need to do any work on redesigning our landing page to improve the visitor experience - see: http://tinyurl.com/ya2y4p9
Perhaps we need to revisit these ideas and think about establishing a workgroup to improve our visitor experience and to make recommendations for improving our landing pages and support for visitors to WE?
Thoughts?
Wayne
--
Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
Director,
International Centre for Open Education,
Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
Board of Directors, OER Foundation.
Founder and Community Council Member, Wikieducator, www.wikieducator.org
Mobile +64 21 2436 380
Skype: WGMNZ1
Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg
Great post! I agree -- we're not doing enough to welcome and support the visitor "experience".
Looking at our site statistics, 84% of our traffic is sourced from search engines finding our pages.
The visitor percentage may be a little overstated given that Mediawiki's standard search engine is not the best in the world and many educators search WikiEducator using Google by including "Wikieducator" in the google search query. From our statistics, this practice would account for about 2% of our traffic sourced from search engines -- consequently, we have a high percentage of "visitors" coming to WikiEducator through search engines.
On average -- users coming to WikiEducator via search engines visit approximately 2.5 pages per visit (compared with an average of 18 pages per visit for users including "WikiEducator" in the search query.)
Valerie -- in answer to your questions:
Are WE doing enough for "visitors"? -- No, I don't think we're doing enough :-(.
Can WE do better? -- Yes, WE can always do better :-)
Earlier this year -- I posted a few open questions to our list thinking about whether we need to do any work on redesigning our landing page to improve the visitor experience - see: http://tinyurl.com/ya2y4p9
Perhaps we need to revisit these ideas and think about establishing a workgroup to improve our visitor experience and to make recommendations for improving our landing pages and support for visitors to WE?
Thoughts?
Wayne
2009/11/10 valerie <vta...@gmail.com>
--
Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
Director,
International Centre for Open Education,
Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
Board of Directors, OER Foundation.
Founder and Community Council Member, Wikieducator, www.wikieducator.org
Mobile +64 21 2436 380
Skype: WGMNZ1
Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg
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