Considering the Data

Over at KissMetrics, marketing blog, they recently posted a piece by Jeff Gothelf about You vs. The Data that I thought was insightful and filled with some good food for thought.

Jeff talks about the value of testing and data but then looks at the issues that can arise if one relies too heavily on the data without looking at it in the larger context of the brand, aesthetics, corporate strategy etc.

“…the data only tells us what our customers are doing on the site. What it doesn’t tell us is why they are doing it. Without truly understanding what is motivating our customers to take (or miss) certain actions in our online experiences, every optimization effort becomes a stab in the dark.”

We tried to articulate the same point in our keynote talk Christian and I gave at Web 2.0 Expo in March. Data is great. But data can become a crutch and should be used as a companion to all the other tools in our arsenal for making decisions about the user experience.

Optimizing small things can bring in extra dollars but might be missing the larger boat if not considered in the right contexts.