I had a request in the comments of my previous post to write about which stat tracking program worked best for me. The choices I had were Mint, Google Analytics, and Measure Map. I didn’t try Measure Map because I don’t have the time to keep up with all three, but I’m sure it’s a lovely program and anyone that has tried it, please feel free to enlighten the rest of us. Now let’s get to it.

I currently use Mint, but I thought I owed it to myself to give Google Analytics a try when it was released. After a few days, it has finally tallied all of the information from my site and is able to give me readouts of traffic, browser use, screen resolution, and even information such as visitor loyalty and geo map overlays. All in all, the Google web application is a solid package and it serves a useful purpose (not to mention it’s completely free). However it seems that some of the output is a bit over the top for my needs. Although Google Analytics has more out of the box features and seemingly endless stats, I believe that Mint is the better stats package for me based on design, ease of use, and scalability.

It simply works

Mint just looks cool. It’s designed and built by Shaun Inman and if you’re at all familiar with his site, you can imagine what the interface looks like. If you’ve had a long day and would rather not let your imagination get the best of you, here’s a video. The interface is simple, elegant, and easy to use. With Google Analytics, there are bar graphs and pie charts abound, spewing my information into corporate Power-Point-slide-looking tables. If I were doing a corporate site for a client, then this would be an option. However, for my small site about my small design studio, much of the information is pure overload; which leads me to my next point.

Avoid app bloat, use Peppers

Although Google Analytics comes with a bunch of stat tracking pieces out of the gate, there are some parts that I would never use. I can either not click on them, or in the case of Mint, simply not download them. Mint comes with basic functionality and allows you to add Peppers as you see fit. No overgrown stat package, only the information that is relevant to you. Installation is a breeze and in no time you are up and running with the stats you need without the bloat associated with other stat trackers. Along with custom Peppers, there is a thriving support forum where you will get answers to all of your questions. You can even interact with the guy who made the program and suggest new Peppers to the community as your needs change. What a concept!

Just press F12

Finally, the biggest selling point for Mint in my opinion is the Junior Mint widget. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it is by far the most useful part about Mint for me. Let’s face it, unless you are doing some investigative research, planning a redesign and deciding whether to use 800×600 or 1024×768 or trying to figure out the ROI of your latest marketing endeavor, you probably only want visitor information. With the touch of a button, I am given the most up to date visitor stats without having to login to a web application. In order for me to get that with Google Analytics, I need to open up Firefox (not my first browser choice, I use Safari), log in to my Google Account and then access my web stats. That can take up to 2-3 minutes when all I want to do is check out how many visitors I had last hour.

For me, my site is a personal outlet and I don’t necessarily need all of my web stats broken down into fancy pie charts and bar graphs. On the other hand, if I am doing client work that requires specific information or the client would like support for why a certain decision was made, I wouldn’t hesitate to use Google Analytics. However, Mint works just fine for my needs and has also worked like a champ for my clients. Sometimes simpler is better and Mint proves that.

I had a request in the comments of my previous post to write about which stat tracking program worked best for me. The choices I had were Mint, Google Analytics, and Measure Map.