Google Analytics is all the rage right now, and I’m not surprised. It’s a great tool, and is already telling me things I don’t know.

For the 35% of you viewing on IE* over the past weeks, I issue a mea culpa about the wacky sidebar placement on the front page. I’d fixed it a while back but the CSS regressed at some point. It means a lot to me that the site looks good at 800×600. Now Google Analytics tells me that only 6% of my viewers view in 800×600. But I won’t give up on you, my low resolution brethren.

In the murky world of web design, where every third sentence starts with “most people like” or “what people use is,” it’s good to have some numbers for comparison. It seems to me that no matter how empathic we start out, over time we drift, and what people want and use ends up being remarkably similar to what we as creators want and use. Tools like Analytics can hopefully help to correct that drift from time to time, and to make sure that the effort is commensurate with the need.

*If you are, please consider Firefox. I don’t evangelize often, but it’s a better browsing experience. And did I mention it’s free?