Link sharing metrics, Bounce Rates, and More… The Monday September 12th Roundup

Another Monday and with it another list of new and exciting posts from across the internet. Thanks to Labor Day eating last weeks post (and how notoriously difficult it is to find posts the week before) there is plenty of good “new” content today, including posts on LESS/SASS styling, Paypal, metrics on shared links, bounce rates and so much more.

Create

• The create section is somewhat monotonous today, with two posts from Smashing Magazine: first, getting started with the PayPal API.
• Next, they have an introduction to LESS and SASS, which allow some seriously cool and complex page styling.

Attract

• Bit.ly has an awesome post on how long people pay attention to a posted link. Cool, but unsurprising, results. Facebook, Twitter, and direct sources all have the majority of clicks in the first 10 minutes, then fade away, while YouTube seems to peak about 15 minutes in.
• Get Elastic has some similar content up on whether Facebook likes make a difference.  It’s essentially a good discussion of the potential of the like button. Now if only this were backed with some data that could evidence any of the value we all claim that Facebook gives… you know, so we could know if it really makes a difference…

Analyze

• E-nor has a pretty rad post on grouping channels in Multi Channel Funnels. This is actually pretty cool stuff, and they do a pretty good job explaining how to set these up.
• Yes! Michael Gray is asking one of those questions I love to hear people ask: is a high bounce rate bad? Avinash Kaushik always describes it with metaphors of puking and leaving, but as Michael relates, on several pages with high bounce rates, click tracking showed that users were actually printing the page (and, assumedly, reading it later)! My only complaint is that he compares a low Average Time on Page to a low Bounce Rate and concludes that pages with both are bad. Well, in his particular image he’s looking with *really* high bounce rates (often 100%) and, as anyone who has read my previous posts will know, this is problematic. If you have a 100% exit rate on a page, you will always have a 00:00:00  ATOP.Note, however, that a 100% bounce rate will not always mean a 00:00:00 ATOP, since visitors may exit from that page after viewing other pages.

Optimize

• Good Usability has a post on road signs and how their similarities with website UX. Similarities? Road signs are a key component of road UX! And it’s pretty impressive how their design can change how well a road works. One famous case in Bristol was when they actually decided to get rid of all the traffic lights (and I think signs?) as a test. The road system was so poorly designed that removing them actually increased traffic efficiency and reduced accidents. More on the point, users eyes flick towards page elements as they do towards road signs, so a lot of the same rules hold.
• We’ll end with a Smashingmag post as well, this time on long term relationships. With users, that is. You know, the “return visitor” type. Amidst the takeaways, customers (I’d say users, but that’s me) who don’t feel valued leave., and you should test your users on long term value.