[ SXSW Bios ]
@bokardo
@performable
Brief
For every design change you make affecting your user’s experience, do you know if you’re having a positive or negative impact? Are you adding to your organization’s bottom line or eroding it? Are you sure? Or, are you like most design teams who release work through a ramshackle process made up of politics, prayer, and paralysis? The health of the business must be the highest priority for designers. With a plethora of fast and cheap analytics tools available that bring us the ability to measure almost anything, we have no excuse not to be measuring every design change we make. From a/b testing small interface tweaks to measuring time-on-site for new users to measuring user satisfaction over long time periods, we can know more about the people who use our software than ever before. In this talk, Joshua Porter will provide you with a simple, easy framework for metrics-driven design. By using a combination of research methods as well as powerful new tracking tools, Josh will show you how to align your design priorities with what keeps you in business. You will come away from this talk with a clear idea of what metrics are most important, which ones to focus on, and which ones to ignore. So don’t drive blindly: use metrics-driven design to make sure the impact you’re having is a positive one.
Metrics for Designers
Data driven design. testing optimizes to a local maxima (best in current model). intuition driven design creates new maxima (next better design). cycle through both phases. 1) ideation 2) optimization. 3) iterate.
- reduce opinion arguments
- answers about what works (w/ valid data)
- show your strengths and weaknesses (visual designers are not necessarily interaction designers)
- test anything you want
- metrics let you show the most effective choice to clients
metrics can be as unique as your business is unique.
GA not so great for design decisions. metrics have to be actionable.
The Usage Lifecycle
interested. trial. customer. passionate customer (vocal fan).
hurdles: acquisition. conversion. engagement. satisfaction.
metrics measure how well you move people past these hurdles. CPA > LTV = bad.