Background: I run one section of the health system's intranet - specifically the Training website where we host information on our classroom classes, our online classes, and various other items related to training records.
I periodically use Smarter Stats to run through the logs and see what's going on with the site. In particular, I like to check the frequently traveled paths to see if there are ways to streamline the site and help people get what they are looking for faster.
Problem: One of the constants over the last year or so has been that the 3rd most frequent path is to hit the home page and ... that's it.
Possibilities: I know that roughly 60% of the staff who could be visiting the site can (and often are) interrupted at any given time - so it's possible that it is related to nurses, etc. going to the site and then not being able to come back for 20 min or more. (I discovered that early on when I was trying to find out why it took some people 120 minutes to take a 5 question online test)
I know that it's also possible that with the information we've migrated to the home page, they could see everything they need to know for that particular visit and not have to go any further.
And it's not out of the realm of possibility that they come to the site and just abandon the task they set out to do.
Misc. Info: My last round of usability tests showed that some recent changes to the navigation resolved some of the major "discoverability" issues we've had in the past.
Bottom Line: Is there an easy way to determine if they are finding what they need or are abandoning the site without running another usability test. (I don't have the time I once had to run them any more)
