I recently went to a conference where several sessions focused on analytics, and what analytics could provide to businesses of any size. Having some background in analytics myself, I definitely agreed with several sentiments these speakers expressed.. but I also think that too much of a focus on analytics can be a big mistake.
Analytics is great, in that it gives you lots of data telling you what people do and where they go in a system. It can also give you very useful results when you use it in processes like multivariate testing, comparing different versions of the same design. It adds value… but it can be misread and misused.
I remind you of an obvious fact: Users aren’t data, they’re people… and they are not easily broken into trend maps and analytical patterns. Knowing what people do is useful – knowing WHY they tend to do certain things is vital. As a UX Architect, I focus on creating designs that align with their mental models and their needs, and analytics can’t provide that. I’d rather know what drives users a lot more than what a huge homogonized group of them tends to do. The former provides insight and understanding, the latter is sometimes no better than an access log of page hits. Anayltics are reactive – user research is proactive and (in my experience) generates ideas a lot better than a spreadsheet fileld with data does.
Analytics, aligned and combined with user research and user center design processes, are a fantastic way to implement a great designs for customers. The user-centered design allows you to gain the insights that produce effective designs, and the analytics can help you refine and tune the design after the work goes “live.” And that’s another important point, because analytics only provide results after a design is launched it can’t help you in the early days of creating a concept or fleshing out ideas.
We should also be mindful that analytics should be used to reinforce decisions, not to replace decision making. The designers and the product owners should be the one making the calls, not ceding the decision making to the “wisdom of crowds.” Use the data as an input, not the “tie-breaker” that provides a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.
Designers should use all the inputs they can to make decisions, but should also never lose fact of the one input that provides exceptional value – our gut. We should always follow that instinct far more than data, as the creative ideas that often come from our “guts” are the ones that make a real difference in the world.