71–80 of 100 posts
If you don't have any analytics, then how do you know your audience size? Is it 10 people per month? 1000 people? 1,000,000 people? No offense but I can't accept "it doesn't matter."
I don't get it - it is a nice sentiment, but the crux of the argument seems to "go with your gut." The reason web analytics has been so popular is that you can actually improve your product significantly without as much subjectivity. Before web analytics, going with your gut was the only option. It turns out, threading events through a funnel that show you lost 90% of your users because your button doesn't show up on…
Then you'd run the app on all screen sizes before each git push and notice that the button doesn't always show up, or isn't always clickable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Before web analytics, going with your gut was the only option. The analytics people insistent denial that usability research ever existed seems to have reached a new level.
What I wrote wasn't an insistent denial, try steelmanning next time. Extrapolating the magnitude of problems from user research is hard, since you're still sampling a distribution.
I don't get it - it is a nice sentiment, but the crux of the argument seems to "go with your gut." The reason web analytics has been so popular is that you can actually improve your product significantly without as much subjectivity. Before web analytics, going with your gut was the only option. It turns out, threading events through a funnel that show you lost 90% of your users because your button doesn't show up on…
> improve your product significantly without as much subjectivity It's fake objectivity that often leads to a race to the boottom. Between "engagement" as a terrible proxy for user happiness/success and the idea that it's more important and better if nobody can fail to use your app's "UX" than it is if it to enables a smaller number of people who take the time to learn to do really great things, all wrapped up in the…
I don't get it - it is a nice sentiment, but the crux of the argument seems to "go with your gut." The reason web analytics has been so popular is that you can actually improve your product significantly without as much subjectivity. Before web analytics, going with your gut was the only option. It turns out, threading events through a funnel that show you lost 90% of your users because your button doesn't show up on…
I've personally never been in a situation where analytics drove change. Even mere A/B testing seems like a ghost in (most?) organizations, where management or designers decide to force through their personal preferences. That said, I would love to join such an organization. Any suggestions on where to find data driven jobs?
I don't get it - it is a nice sentiment, but the crux of the argument seems to "go with your gut." The reason web analytics has been so popular is that you can actually improve your product significantly without as much subjectivity. Before web analytics, going with your gut was the only option. It turns out, threading events through a funnel that show you lost 90% of your users because your button doesn't show up on…
Numbers provide a happy path for consensus. If the "why" of your project is to please as many people as possible, then web analytics probably works great. I'm not arguing they're categorically useless, only trying to surface the unspoken costs I see bear out in our industry from relying on them so heavily.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
*Update: I removed the pagination and scrolling effects. The entire post can be read on a single page now. (And I didn't need analytics to understand something wasn't working lol.)
But you did need user feedback, which analytics would help with
Been thinking about that case lately, and it makes a much better argument for me in terms of analytics.
I realized that from my own perspective as a private citizen, I'm not sure if there's any way to prove that Google and Facebook are not falsifying my clicks. I face such an information disparity in bargaining. I literally depend on the company for the tools to monitor the company. "How many people downloaded my app? Arbitrary."
Its a bit like trying to win against the NSA inside America, except they can already listen to every phone line (still finding stuff, yet another NSA leak today).
It's just too easily Machiavellian. "We've got so many new user signups, and they all love your videos...post more content like that. All the rest of you are failures, because we can just bury your content and you'll never know."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Before web analytics, going with your gut was the only option. The analytics people insistent denial that usability research ever existed seems to have reached a new level.
What I wrote wasn't an insistent denial, try steelmanning next time. Extrapolating the magnitude of problems from user research is hard, since you're still sampling a distribution.
Anyway, and FYI, one of the most robust findings in user research is that the magnitude of problems isn't really something important to know.
I build websites for small business, and since the beginning have used Google Analytics. What used to be a valuable tool that I would eagerly tell my clients to utilize, has now become an overly complex nightmare I loathe to install and rarely recommend to my clients. I recently had a client ask to use StatCounter.com (my reaction: "they're still around?!?") and it was refreshingly simple, much like the original Goog…
GA4 is actually the simple version of GA. Lots of stuff is hidden. So it looks lol Google did exactly what you wanted )‘simplified Analytics service’). However, if you want an even simpler solution: Matamo is totally free as well.