Analytics Expert Blog

Hi. Regarding our new interface. We’ve been blogging and tweeting about it and had it publicly available to all users for over a month, because we value your feedback and we care about you. If you care about Clicky, we feel it is your responsibility to monitor these communication channels that we use on a very regular basis. We are very open and transparent about everything we do. Some would say too transparent, although I would disagree.

During the beta period, we had many thousands of people use it and the vast majority of the feedback was very positive. Just go look at the old blog posts yourself to see the comments people were leaving. The only consistent complaint we got was that it’s not centered, but otherwise most people loved it. Based on that much feedback from that many people, we knew we were going in the right direction.

I have a theory regarding why the beta testers were so much more positive compared to the comments that have been left here. If you’re willing to test beta software, you are open to change already. You know things will be new and different and hence you will more accepting of them, especially because the old Clicky was still available. But even with thousands of testers, I would guess that only 5-10% of our users at the very most saw the beta. The rest of you had no idea it was coming, so it was a shock. But again, we tried to be as open about this as possible and got a ton of feedback before making it live. (So please, if you’re not already, subscribe to our blog or follow us on Twitter).

People are resistant to change. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Well, Clicky wasn’t broken per se, but it was starting to feel dated. Sexy competitors like Chartbeat and Woopra have popped up and while we feel that our product is much more feature complete than either of them, people rave about their interfaces all the time. We get plenty of compliments on our (old) interface too, because of its simplicity and ease of use, but the difference is that Clicky felt like a web site, while the others feel like web apps. (And in the case of Woopra, it is literally a desktop app, although they offer a web version now as well).

We wanted to feel like an app too. It’s the way the web is moving and we were feeling left out. Hence, the navigational changes – fixed sidebar navigation, everything loading via Ajax, page loading animations, auto-updating reports, etc.

This isn’t change just for the sake of change. The new Clicky has been floating around in my head for close to a year, but I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted it to do. Over the summer my vision became clear and in mid-August I decided it was time to act. Two months later, here we are. This is the longest I’ve ever spent on developing a new feature for Clicky. I’m very proud of it, but that makes the negative comments hurt that much more.

Please give the new Clicky a chance to grow on you. I promise that it will for most of you, once the initial shock wears off. I’m a huge believer in UI and UX, and believe this is one of the major reasons for our success. I’d like to think I know what I’m doing, so please place your trust in me to deliver you the best analytics experience possible.

One last thing. Please keep your criticisms constructive. If you don’t like, don’t just say it sucks. That doesn’t help. Tell us specifically why you don’t like it. We will adjust things based on your feedback over the coming weeks and months. We are listening to what you have to say.