Most of the time, when you try out some new software, you are able to get the intended functionality out of the program - without significant learning time or technical issues, if you’re lucky. It does what you needed it to do, and that’s that.

On rare occasions, however, the process is almost magical: you try out the program, and your jaw drops when you realize how much power it gives you; how much more information is at your fingertips; how much faster, simpler, and more fun your life can be made by this previously irrelevant (to you) chunk of code.

We’ve been using Google Analytics and Crazy Egg on our blog since day one, and would definitely put these nifty little (free!!) tools in the latter category. Google Analytics allows us to track our site visitor data with a shocking degree of precision - by time spent on the site, by location, by browser used, by incoming link followed, by navigation pathways through the site, by Java version installed, and by a whole bunch of other characteristics (all anonymously, of course). And we’re not even using several of the more advanced features yet.

The most impressive thing about the program is how easy and fun it is to use. It’s got a super intuitive interface, and it’s full of interactive visualization tools like the one to the right, which shows where in the US our visitors came from during a brief period last month.

Similarly, Crazy Egg lets us see what visitors do with their mouse pointers as they browse the site using four main views. The “overlay” view shows how many times each of the links were clicked (shown below) as well as the site from which the viewer was referred; a “heatmap” shows where the most clicks on the page occurred, ranging from ‘hotspots’ in red to less popular links in blue; a new “confetti view” shows the top 15 referral sites, top 15 search terms, browsers, etc. of those who clicked; and the “list” view provides much of this information in exportable chart form.

Now that the initial wow factor has worn off, we don’t check our stats on Google Analytics or look at heat maps from Crazy Egg particularly often. (And don’t worry, we’re not stalking our readers, as our soon-to-be-posted privacy policy will confirm!) The real benefit of having these tools will come later, after we’ve launched MixedInk. We’ll need to see where people are coming from, which sites send them here, and how they navigate around the site, so that we can improve the user experience and grow our user base.

If you’re tech-savvy, this may not be news to you. You may rightly point out that there are more powerful programs out there (though not any free ones, as far as we are aware). But I hope this at least helped you relive your long-lost moments of technological awe.

If you’re not a techie, maybe this little love-fest will inspire you to try new software - including MixedInk, when the time comes. The potential payoffs of using well-designed software are worth it!