An introduction to using minute granularity data and why your clients need to know about it!

One of the biggest issues with looking at data on an hour by hour granularity is that it can mask critical events and create misleading data. It is not until you start examining the data in greater detail that you find surprising and actionable data.

For example with large traffic spikes, server response times can dramatically slow down, even locking up. All the visitors currently browsing are then forced to refresh and wrongly become classified as new visitors. Thus creating the misleading illusion of an exceptional traffic spike when in reality your users have suffered a huge UX problem.

I will explore how these metrics are used by the likes of moonpig.com and hungryhouse.co.uk. What the most popular metrics currently used are, some of the pitfalls and some of the newer techniques that are being pioneered.

Hugh Hopkins,

GoSquared.