The University of Minnesota has a fairly intricate process for recording 
patron interactions with their library that yields very detailed 
information of the sort you're looking for.  For example, they can tell 
you -- based on statistically significant data -- the exact amount by 
which a student's GPA rises on average for each point of contact with 
the library.  I've been working (slowly) towards doing the same kind of 
thing at my institution.

In brief, they log personally identifiable information about patron 
interactions.  Say Sally Student checks out Moby Dick.  They would log 
her name, student number, and the type of activity -- "checked out a 
book", or "accessed a database" or "logged into a lab computer" and so 
on.  Then, each year, they package up that data and send it to the 
Office of Institutional Research.   The OIR connects all of the student 
library data with their student records, and conducts statistical 
analysis on it, focusing on measures of student success.

They've published some aggregate results.  The person to talk to at UMN 
about this is Shane Nackerud.

This may be larger than you're looking for, because it touches on 
overall library performance rather than just the website.  But you did 
ask for big picture stuff.

Hope this helps.

Will Martin

Chester Fritz Library
University of North Dakota

On 2015-09-16 10:50, Joshua Welker wrote:
> We are in the middle of a large strategic alignment effort at our
> university. A big part of that is developing KPIs (key performance
> indicators) to use as a benchmark for self-assessment and budget
> allocation. The goal is to develop "scorecards" of sorts to help us 
> track
> our success.
> 
> Our website and other web platforms are of vital importance to us, but 
> I
> really don't know what would make good KPIs to help us evaluate them. 
> We
> collect loads of website usage data, but I don't know what kind of 
> metrics
> could serve as a scorecard. Looking at raw sessions and pageviews is 
> simple
> but not particularly meaningful.
> 
> There are two ways to approach KPIs. There is a data-based approach 
> that
> correlates performance with data and then just tracks the data, like
> pageviews. Then there is an outcomes-based approach that is more
> qualitative in nature and simply states the outcome we want to achieve, 
> and
> then a variety of types of data are examined to determine whether we 
> are
> achieving the outcome.
> 
> Long story short, I am curious about how other libraries assess the 
> success
> or failure of their websites. I am not looking for usability testing
> strategies. I am thinking more big picture. Any help is appreciated.
> 
> Josh Welker
> Information Technology Librarian
> James C. Kirkpatrick Library
> University of Central Missouri
> Warrensburg, MO 64093
> JCKL 2260
> 660.543.8022