Earlier today Google Analytics started seeing design and structural changes on the Google Analytics interface. This is a an interesting change that makes the product more coherent, bringing features that were scattered through different tabs and sidebar into a more unified place. Below I describe the most prominent changes, although there were dozens of small design changes. If I missed any important update please let me know in the comments section.
New Top Navigation And Sidebar – Less Tabs, More Coherent
The most prominent change is the top navigation (orange bar) and sidebar. Previously the reports were divided between the profiles list, “Home”, “Standard Reporting” and “Custom Reporting.” Now we can see the following:
Basically, all the report tabs that were listed under a main tab called “Home” (Dashboards, Shortcuts, Intelligence Events and Real Time) are now listed under “Reporting”, which is really where they belong. In addition, Real Time is considered an integral part of the standard reports, with the other three mentioned reports being considered “My Stuff”
Another interesting change when it comes to the reports placement is that the AdWords section is now part of the Traffic Sources drop-down. This has always been like that, and that’s where AdWords belongs, as it is traffic source; but last year, in a major update called Google Analytics V5, the AdWords reports were given a section of their own, which is now no more.
Ah! And now the top navigation floats as we scroll down the page.
New Customizations To Dashboards
The dashboards also got a big change in design, now with white widgets over a light grey background. But, more importantly, it is now possible to create different layout to your dashboards as seen in the screenshot below. This comes as a great improvement, as it allows, for example, more rooms to tables which are more data-rich.
In addition, we now have two more Widget options: GEO maps and Bars. GEO maps will add a widget that contain a world (or country, states, etc) and color it based on a metric you choose, a very quick way to analyze metrics based on a location. Bars are a very advanced way to graph data. Below are the options offered in this widget:
Needless to say that all the additions mentioned will enable the creation of more powerful visualization and dashboards. This, together with the fact that dashboards are “emailable”, exportable, “segmentable” and shareable, makes it even more useful. Here are some tips on how to make the most out of dashboards.
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