Data Driven Design - Web Analytics & Testing for Designers (Web Directions South 2009)

Web Directions South 2009, Oct 8-9 Session: Data Driven Design Speaker: Luke Stevens (@lukestevens) Sign up for the book! http://msrmnt.com/book/ http://twitter.com/msrmnt Questions? luke@msrmnt.com

Hey, I’m Luke

1. Intro + The Problem 2. Quick case study 3. Cool technique

Data driven design

Who cares?

Data driven design Performance based design

No longer just an aesthetic, usability or experience problem.

1. Coaches + athletes 2. Doctors + patients

Coach + Athlete

Athletes: - Have a speci c goal - Goal = single number - Data driven

Michael Phelps’ breakfast: - Three fried-egg sandwiches - Five-egg omelet - Bowl of grits (porridge) - Three slices of French toast - Three choc-chip pancakes - Two cups of coﬀee

Performance encourages: - Creativity - The unexpected - Risk

Doctors

1st priority?

NOT KILL YOU (aka ‘do no harm’)

WARNING: Side eﬀects may include: - Decreased sales - Angry customers - Lighter wallet

Getting harder NOT to do harm

Design is maturing

http://www.microsoft.com/misc/features/features_ shbk.htm

Even Microsoft gets design Well, visual design. On the web. For their home page.

Design maturity over time 50 37.5 25 12.5 0 1994 1997 2000 2003 2006 2009

Do no harm

One problem. Many solutions.

Who chooses?

Flip a coin?

Wired: Extreme Makeover: Craigslist Edition http://wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/17-09/ﬀ_craigslist_makeover

Original - craigslist today

Khoi Vinh & colleagues, NYTimes.com

SimpleScott, former design director of BarackObama.com

Luke Hayman and Lisa Strausfeld, Pentagram

1. Will it do harm? 2. Which is best?

“Your designs are terrible, confusing and you miss the point”

If we, as designers, can’t pick the best performer, then...?

THIS IS THE PROBLEM

Out with the old

In with the new

Gutenberg Bible - 15th century

What we do is diﬀerent

The most measurable form of design in history

Recap - Part 1

1. We have the most measurable form of design in history

2. We should use that

Part II Quick case study

Know your metric

What success looks like:

PhotographyBLOG.com - Original

~1 MM visitors ~3 MM page views ~10 blog stories a day

Home page traﬃc?

8% (92% elsewhere)

Data > Assumptions

Know Google Analytics

Buy a book advanced-web-metrics.com

Know web analytics

Read Avinash’s blog kaushik.net/avinash/

PhotographyBLOG: Camera reviews

Web analytics = strategy

PhotographyBLOG.com - v1

PhotographyBLOG.com - v2

PhotographyBLOG.com - v1 & v2

Test, don’t guess

A/B testing

Which design won?

v1 or v2? Pick one

Neither Performance was almost identical

ANY result = learnings* * ”learnings” is not a real word

E.g. Users did. not. care.

PhotographyBLOG.com - Original

PhotographyBLOG.com - Redesign

Performance based design: Happy client & Happy users

Testing is powerful

Testing will change the way you think about design

But what to test?

YouTube - 1,024 (!) combinations of tiny details. 15% more sign ups

YouTube’s 1,024 combo experiment using Google Website Optimizer From: http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2009/08/look-inside-1024-recipe-multivariate.html

37signals tested headlines. 30% more sign ups

Winner 30% lift 2nd place 27% lift 3rd place 15% lift Original (worst performer) From: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1525-writing-decisions-headline-tests-on-the-highrise-signup-page

Button text: “Free Trial” “Sign-up for Free Trial” “See Plans and Pricing”

37signals tested a button - Doubled clicks From: http://carsoni ed.com/blog/business/how-to-increase-sign-ups-by-200-percent/

We barely know where the landscape is, let alone where we should be on it.

We all need to test

- All design is testable - Testing takes time - Can only test a few things

We all need to test and SHARE

Current clearing houses: @kissmetrics @abtests

Part III A cool technique

Google Website Optimizer google.com/websiteoptimizer

The web standards movement has given us an incredible, unexpected gift.

HTML + CSS = The perfect platform to test design

Use GWO to serve up alternate CSS les

(But conversions don’t suit everyone...)

Measure the results in Google Analytics gwotricks.com

CSS + GWO + GA = Testing trinity

Objective web design is possible right now

Performance based design builds on standards based design

It’s the future of web design

BOOK! Sign up to get noti ed: http://msrmnt.com/book follow @msrmnt luke@msrmnt.com | @lukestevens

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Data Driven Design - Web Analytics & Testing for Designers (Web Directions South 2009)

by Luke Stevens on Oct 13, 2009

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