Investigating Usage and Users of Digital Resources Profiling visitors of vangoghletters.org peter.boot@huygens.knaw.nl
Content Why analyze log data Log data's possibilities and limitations Tools for log analysis Edition of Van Gogh letters Findings Visits, pages, duration Where from Use of navigational facilities Characterizing users' interests Conclusions 2
Why analyze log data Study users Usability problems Check usage of site components Customise site to user Visitor characteristics and propensities Collecting info Observation Questionnaire Log data 3
Log data available Timestamp IP address Requested page 95.114.173.255 - - [10/Jun/2011:11:37:22 +0200] "GET /vg/index.html HTTP/1.1" 200 11031 "http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/vincent_van_gogh" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; es-es; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13" Referring page User agent Response code, page size 4
Caveats Every object request recorded in log large amount of data No request no data recorded No identification of session Lots of traffic from robots 5
Log analyzers (AWStats)
Log analyzers (AWStats)
Google Analytics
Taming log data Period February 6 September 5, 2011 Number of log lines Ca. 8,053,000 Number of pages (after cleaning) 946,000 IP numbers 'Computers' 'Sessions' Sessions >1 page Return visits 51473 58491 85409 55218 26918 Returning visitors 7714 Avg. sessions of returning visitors 4.5 Pages per session 11.1 Pages per session (> 1 page) 16.6 Time per session (sec.) 292 Time per session (> 1 page) (sec.) 452
5000 4500 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 4356 Returning visitors and number of sessions 2341 587 268 106 35 14 7 2 3-5 6-10 11-20 21-50 51-100 101-200 201+
Logfile turned into spreadsheet Timestamp To page From page 5- apr- 10 15:01:38 entry extern 5- apr- 10 15:04:27 search simple "many a flower is trampled" entry 5- apr- 10 15:04:28 letter? let574 search simple 5- apr- 10 15:04:29 letter translation let574 letter top let574 5- apr- 10 15:04:29 letter notes let574 letter top let574 5- apr- 10 15:04:29 letter original_text let574 letter top let574 5- apr- 10 15:08:30 toc period search simple 5- apr- 10 15:08:50 letter? let588 toc period 5- apr- 10 15:08:51 letter translation let588 letter top let588 5- apr- 10 15:08:51 letter notes let588 letter top let588 5- apr- 10 15:08:51 letter original_text let588 letter top let588 5- apr- 10 15:09:16 letter? let589 toc period 5- apr- 10 15:09:18 letter translation let589 letter top let589 5- apr- 10 15:09:18 letter notes let589 letter top let589 5- apr- 10 15:09:18 letter original_text let589 letter top let589 5- apr- 10 15:16:38 letter? let683 extern 5- apr- 10 15:16:41 letter notes let683 letter top let683 5- apr- 10 16:02:52 toc complete letter top let751 5- apr- 10 16:15:50 entry extern 5- apr- 10 16:16:18 essay about 1 entry 6- apr- 10 12:04:46 entry extern 6- apr- 10 12:12:52 essay correspondents 1 entry 6- apr- 10 12:12:54 toc correspondent essay correspondents 1 6- apr- 10 13:48:56 toc period entry
Where do people come from? External sessions Yes 41161 No 44244 Total 85405 Sites Number www.google.com 25989 www.vangoghmuseum.nl 4359 any.wikipedia.org 2870 www.googleartproject.com 2106 translate.googleusercontent.com 1042 www.facebook.com 906 www.vggallery.com 839 www.bing.com 735 www.vangoghreproductions.com 463 search.yahoo.com 395 www.vangoghsblog.com 353 webcache.googleusercontent.com 262 www.stumbleupon.com 247 painting.about.com 236 twitter.com 215... Total 49271
Landing pages of external visitors list 1171 search 6242 toc 2540 border 386 essay 2078 letter 16453 illustration 594 home 19355
Access to letters toc 58990 border 408 essay 686 extern 16451 home 1346 letnext 51815 search 30377 list 1073 letref 13292 letother 4277
Searches Search term Searches keyword or number(s) 2384 paris 510 sunflowers 219 starry night 202? 144 japanese 110 japan 108 ear 103 gauguin 93 zola 87 theo 85 arles 75 bedroom 69 sower 67 colour 66
Searches for works of art Total Ref. Adv. Index Artwork 126 107 19 0 Vincent van Gogh - The bedroom (F 482 / JH 1608) 90 76 12 2 Vincent van Gogh - Starry night (F 612 / JH 1731) 72 69 3 0 Vincent van Gogh - The night café (F 463 / JH 1575) 59 49 10 0 Vincent van Gogh - Starry night over the Rhône (F 474 / JH 1592) 42 40 2 0 Vincent van Gogh - The Tarascon diligence (F 478a / JH 1605) 41 37 3 1 Vincent van Gogh - Self- portrait (F 476 / JH 1581) 39 33 6 0 Vincent van Gogh - The potato eaters (F 82 / JH 764) 34 20 14 0 Vincent van Gogh - The potato eaters (F 1661 / JH 737) 32 32 0 0 Jean- François Millet - The two diggers 31 4 25 2 Vincent van Gogh - Starry night (F 1540 / JH 1732) 31 30 1 0 Vincent van Gogh - Sunflowers in a vase (F 454 / JH 1562) 30 30 0 0 Emile Bernard - Christ in the Garden of Olives 29 18 11 Vincent van Gogh - Pink peach trees ( Souvenir de Mauve ) (F 394 / JH 01379) 28 26 2 0 Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix - Christ asleep during the tempest 26 25 0 1 (Eugène Henri) Paul Gauguin - Human miseries
To conclude For this project Fair amount of serious usage Lots of automated access No fixed point of entry Sequential access ('reading') is very important In general We can get a reasonable idea of what users do Could build a nice application for studying user behaviour Access patterns are highly irregular In depth understanding needs more than log data Thank you!