What does a new user think that your product, or any product, promises to do for them? On a recent multi-state drive I had the opportunity to listen to hours of radio advertisements (thanks to my 6th grader’s insistence on top-40 stations only) and got to hear many “promises.” “We’ll give you cash back on gas purchases,” “We will protect your privacy when you go online,” and “Find the lowest prices on a new car.” However, what the marketing team thinks is the promise is often not what I, the consumer, understand it to be. In buying our mini-van we didn’t need features or lowest prices, we needed reliability, confidence in the safety of the vehicle (precious cargo onboard!), and enough inner capacity to easily pack everything we could need for a weekend trip to the relatives or camping. We ended up paying more for the vehicle that satisfied, and delivered on, the promises that we were looking for.
Measuring the Right Things, pt. 1: What do people click on?
People do not use our products and software in the way that we, the designers and builders, initially expect. In analyzing how web pages are used I wanted a quick way to determine what people are actually clicking on. We have web analytic tools that tell us total page views, link clicks, and form submissions, but is there more we should be looking for? And I had a hunch that users might be clicking on non-interactive elements, expecting something to happen, and experiencing more confusion than joy.
Best Practices in Data Pipelines
The methodology of pulling data out of one software system (via some sort of application programming interface or API) and putting it into a database or other system is commonly referred to as an Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) process. There is also advocacy for ELT patterns (transforming last), but regardless of the location of the T I’ve found that the E and L parts are the most critical. In terms of operational efficiency and the need for constant maintenance, the acquisition of data (E) and storage (L) have to be bug free and running cleanly.
Best Practices in Product Experimentation
Experimentation helps us get a clearer understanding of how users find value in our product, what our users’ needs are, and how we can best help them address those needs through our product. We want to understand the good and the bad, the positive and the pain as best we can so that we can keep improving our product and increasing the impact we have through growing our customer base.