Till now, producers of interactive documentaries made use of the free tool – Google Analytics, to identify the levels of engagement of users with their creations. But this already existing analytics tool is mainly useful for traditional websites. The data that it captures is not fully suitable for the improvement of interactive documentary and does not answer questions about how users navigate through the interface and make use of features like intro-videos, help menus or autopilot narrative options. Or more importantly what story they construct: in other words which narrative paths they choose through the database-structured narrative content.

By recombining existing data with custom captured data, and visualizing this in a readable manner, it becomes possible to extract answers on questions documentary makers would like to know. This is all combined into one analytics tool. Figures will give makers of interactive documentaries the preferred insights into audience behaviors, technical aspects and audience acquisition to improve several aspects of their productions.

Contact person: Loes Bogers