tekom - conferences

Understanding search behaviour and searchability of your documentation using matomo and Python

  • Tutorial
  • User Involvement & Feedback
  • 07. November
  • 14:00 - 15:00 PM (CET)
  • C7.1
  • finished
  • Dr. Yulia Rönsch

Contents

The curent presentation focuses on web-hosted documentation and how to measure its searchability.

Quite often, users may have difficulties finding information in your documentation. Not only does it mean that the effort invested into its creation was not enough – poorly searchable documentation results in additional support inquiries, frustration for users and delays in their work, and, as a consequence, may influence considerations about choosing an alternative vendor.

In this tutorial, I would like to introduce a few tools that help you to find out more about the search behavior of your users and what prevents them from finding the information. The ultimate goal is to help you to sort out priorities and decide where to put the biggest effort to eliminate the drawbacks.  

The tools are matomo, a free web tracking solution, and a few Python libraries. The tutorial will also provide some advice on how to draft a meaningful algorithm for analyzing your data, how to support your quantitative data with some qualitative data, and how to make conclusions. 

Takeaways

  • How to convert user complains into questions that can guide your analysis
  • How to use matomo, a free of charge web tracking tool
  • How to make matomo reports readable for you using Python
  • What to do to enhance your documentation searchability

Speaker

Dr. Yulia Rönsch

Biography

Yulia finished her Ph.D. in communication science at the University of Technology in Dresden in 2016. She conducted a study about political communication and social media. During this, she learned a bunch of statistical methods that she wanted to use in her career as a data analyst. Yulia then worked in two Munich-based agencies specialized in data-driven marketing. She later worked at one of the Burda companies where she also learned Salesforce, SAP, Python programming, and advanced business analysis techniques.

Around this time, Yulia got fascinated by technical writing and never looked back since then. After a few years of working with various software vendors in a freelance role, she joined censhare, a Munich-based company that sells a highly customizable software solution for managing digital assets. 

Yulia writes developer documentation and maintains publishing automations.

Yulia finished her Ph.D. in communication science at the University of Technology in Dresden in 2016. She conducted a study about political communication and social media. During this, she learned a bunch of statistical methods that she wanted to use in her career as a data analyst. Yulia then worked in two Munich-based agencies specialized in data-driven marketing. She later worked at one of the Burda companies where she also learned Salesforce, SAP, Python programming, and advanced business analysis techniques.

Around this time, Yulia got fascinated by technical writing and never looked back since then. After a few years of working with various software vendors in a freelance role, she joined a Munich-based company that sells a highly customizable software solution for managing digital assets. 

Yulia writes developer documentation and maintains publishing automations.