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Create a custom event for every chart view (in grapher, not explorers) #3834

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larsyencken opened this issue Aug 1, 2024 · 1 comment · Fixed by #4076
Closed

Create a custom event for every chart view (in grapher, not explorers) #3834

larsyencken opened this issue Aug 1, 2024 · 1 comment · Fixed by #4076
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@sophiamersmann
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analytics priority 2 - important viz

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@larsyencken
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Context

  • We currently count chart views for a chart <slug> by looking at Google Analytics pageviews for https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/<slug>
  • Since many minor interactions with a chart trigger new pageview events, we look at the referrer and eliminate events that share the same chart as referrer

Problem

  • This approach under-counts chart views, since many of them will be embedded in articles
  • This approach makes it harder for us to define what we think a significant chart view is, which may become more relevant as multi-dimensional indicators are added at /grapher/<slug>
    • Switching dimensions would change the chart enough to count as a significant new pageview

Proposed solution

  • Create our own chart view event
    • Fired on first load of a Grapher page or Grapher embed
    • Not fired when the chart is interacted with, despite GET parameter changes
  • (in analytics) Use the new chart view event as the source of truth for future chart views
@danyx23
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danyx23 commented Oct 3, 2024 •
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Grapher views seem especially important. For explorers it would be great to spike this a bit and draft a map of how we would tackle this (what is the payload of the event?). For explorers, we should create a new follow-up issue then.

@danyx23 danyx23 changed the title Create a custom event for every chart view Create a custom event for every chart view (in grapher, not explorers) Oct 3, 2024
@sophiamersmann sophiamersmann mentioned this issue Oct 30, 2024
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sophiamersmann added a commit that referenced this issue Nov 1, 2024
@sophiamersmann
✨ log grapher views to google analytics (#4076)
c2d1713 
Resolves #3834

## Summary

A view event is logged to Google Analytics when Grapher is rendered.

## Details

- A view event is logged if Grapher is scrolled into view so that we only log an event when a Grapher chart has actually been looked at
- Grapher only logs a view event if it has a slug
    - Explorers used to pass their slug to Grapher for no good reason -> has been removed
    - Mdims used to pass a DUMMY slug to Graphers as a workaround -> has been removed

Logged events are of the following shape:

```
{
    "event": "owid.grapher_view",
    "grapherPath": "/grapher/share-of-population-in-extreme-poverty"
}
```

or, for multi-dim data pages,

```
{
    "event": "owid.grapher_view",
    "grapherPath": "/grapher/mdd-demo-energy",
    "grapherView": { "source": "all", "metric": "total" }
}
```

- Bobbie said it didn't matter if `grapherView` is stringified or not, so I went with the richer format
- The keys in `grapherView` (e.g. `source`, `metric`) are always complete and sorted

If I understand correctly, Google Tag Manager always includes the current page, so there is no need to explicitly pass that for embedded Graphers.

#### Share menu refactor

- The reason explorers and mdims pass a slug into Grapher is that a missing slug disables the share menu
- This didn't make much sense (unless I'm missing something), so I refactored the share menu such that the share menu button is hidden when the menu wouldn't have any items (which depends on the canonical and edit URLs)

## Testing

I tested this code by console logging when an event is fired, but I haven't checked to see if these events actually end up in GA. (I asked Bobbie how to do this and will check later today)

- Grapher/data page: http://staging-site-log-grapher-views/grapher/life-expectancy
  - [x] Should log one view event
- Article: http://staging-site-log-grapher-views/how-has-income-inequality-within-countries-evolved-over-the-past-century
  - [x] Should log a view event when Grapher is scrolled into view, but not earlier
- Multi-dim data page: http://staging-site-log-grapher-views/admin/grapher/mdd-demo-energy
  - [x] Should log an event on page load
  - [x] Should log an event on changing the view
- Homepage: http://staging-site-log-grapher-views
  - [x] Should log an event when scrolling to the first key indicator
  - [x] Should log an event when opening another key indicator, but not earlier
- Topic page: http://staging-site-log-grapher-views/poverty
  - [x] Should log an event when clicking on a key insight with a chart, but not earlier
  - [x] Should log an event on scrolling to the All charts section, but not earlier
  - [x] Should log an event on clicking the "Next" button in the All charts block, but not earlier
  - [x] Should not log an event for the embedded explorer
- Explorer page: http://staging-site-log-grapher-views/explorers/air-pollution
  - [x] Should not log an event

## Caveats

- In the All charts block, an event is logged when going back to a chart that has already been viewed
- In the Key indicator block, no event is logged when opening a key indicator that has been opened before

Not sure what's the right thing to do here, but I guess it doesn't matter that much and both are fine?
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✨ log grapher views to google analytics owid/owid-grapher
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@larsyencken @danyx23 @sophiamersmann