This document discusses three key ingredients for making good product decisions: data, taste, and confidence. It provides guidance on properly collecting and interpreting sufficient data, having good objective design taste that builds trust, and having confidence in decisions while being willing to admit mistakes. User behavior should be measured along with feedback. Both data and taste are important, but taste can attract users before they discover other strengths. Confidence in the product and decisions is important, but changes may still need time to settle and failures should be admitted.

1. Data,
Taste &
Confidence
Lennart Schoors (Lensco) — IA day Gent 2012

2. Data, taste & confidence
3 ingredients for a good product decision

3. Data, taste & confidence
3 ingredients for a good product decision
or ...
a bunch of experiences and observations from five
years as lead designer at Netlog, riddled with quotes
from people smarter than me

4. 1. Data

5. Research
Good research consists of correctly interpreting
sufficient, correct data.

6. Sufficient data: enough...
“
Last week I tossed a coin a hundred
times. 49 heads. Then I changed into a
red t-shirt and tossed the same coin
another hundred times. 51 heads. From
this, I conclude that wearing a red shirt
gives a 4.1% increase in conversion in
throwing heads.
Cennydd Bowles, Clearleft
http://www.cennydd.co.uk/2009/statistical-significance-other-ab-test-pitfalls/

7. ... but not too much
‣ lurking danger: A/B test everything!
result: Frankenstein interfaces
‣ Google testing 41 shades of blue
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/business/01marissa.html?pagewanted=3

8. Correct data
‣ people don't like change
‣ negative bias in user feedback

11. Unhappy users write angry comments, join groups,
sign petitions, vote in polls, …
Happy users just use your product.

12. Unhappy users write angry comments, join groups,
sign petitions, vote in polls, …
Happy users just use your product.
‣ measure user behavior as well as user feedback

13. Interpretation
“
When a company is filled with engineers, it
turns to engineering to solve problems.
Reduce each decision to a simple logic
problem. Remove all subjectivity and just
look at the data. […] And that data
eventually becomes a crutch for every
decision, paralyzing the company and
preventing it from making any daring design
decisions.
Doug Bowman, Twitter
http://stopdesign.com/archive/2009/03/20/goodbye-google.html

14. 2. Taste

15. Objective taste
‣ basic principles of design
‣ the mere fact that you follow a certain
design direction
‣ also: copy, usability, flow, interactions,
customer relations, ...

16. Good taste supports
“
Problems with visual design can turn users
off so quickly that they never discover all
the smart choices you made with navigation
or interaction design.
Jesse James Garrett, Adaptive Path
http://uxmyths.com/post/1161244116/myth-25-aesthetics-are-not-important-if-you-have-good-us

17. Good taste creates trust
“
Good design at the front-end suggests that
everything is in order at the back-end,
whether or not that is the case.
Dmitry Fadeyev
http://www.usabilitypost.com/2010/03/24/value-of-good-design/

18. Good taste has to be ingrained
“
The reason large companies with bad
design are the way they are is because they
are run poorly from the top, with
philosophies that force the entire company
to behave like its lowest common
denominator. […] And if the company is
being run by people who don't have taste, it
gets stuck. Eventually, the company's brand
suffers.
Dustin Curtis
http://dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html

19. “
Without a person at (or near) the helm who
thoroughly understands the principles and
elements of Design, a company eventually
runs out of reasons for design decisions.
With every new design decision, critics cry
foul. Without conviction, doubt creeps in.
Instincts fail.
Doug Bowman, Twitter
http://stopdesign.com/archive/2009/03/20/goodbye-google.html

20. 3. Confidence

21. Confidence
‣ in the product
‣ in your decisions
‣ give changes time to settle ...
‣ ... but don’t be too late to admit defeat

22. “
I don’t mean this as a negative, but I don’t
think of the audience at all. I don’t go to see
a movie –a filmmaker’s vision– hoping to
second-guess what I want. I go to see what
he wants. [...] The day we start think about
what the audience wants is the day we’re
going to start making bad choices.
Andrew Stanton, Pixar/Disney
http://www.bigscreenanimation.com/2008/06/andrew-stanton-roundtable-discussion.html

23. You can’t jump a twenty foot chasm
in two ten foot leaps.

24. Data,
Taste &
Confidence
Lennart Schoors | http://lensco.be