Author Archives: Grace Lau

Why You Should Combine KPIs in Experiments

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Imagine a company that sells a line of products and services. This company will likely have multiple goals for its website:

  1. to sell its products and services online
  2. to collect user information for sales prospects
  3. to drive brand awareness and loyalty
  4. to provide online support for existing customers

Let’s say the company has identified 20 KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that measure the success of these four goals, and it is committed to optimizing the conversion of these goals by running many experiments. Should the company launch the treatment if some KPIs perform better but others perform worse than the control (i.e. the original site)?

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5 Steps to Compare Multiple KPIs

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To know how your website’s doing, you need to define your Key Performance Indicators. If you’re running a blog (or some sort of content publishing site), and your goal is to increase user engagement, your Key Performance Indicators may include number of visits, pageviews per visit, and visit duration. 

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5 Survey Tips in UX Research

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#1 – Only survey those you want to survey.

  • I recently got a survey asking me to rate my satisfaction with one of the website’s products even though I haven’t used it; I’ve only read about the product on their website.
  • In a user satisfaction survey, only survey those who’ve used your product, or at least make a response option like “Not applicable” available. Better yet, survey those who’ve used your product several times so that they have more of an informed opinion.
  • Sounds obvious, but the website that made this mistake is arguably the most well-known website in the world. Sometimes it’s the obvious that gets overlooked.

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“Decrapifying” Data Presentation

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I really enjoyed today’s blog post from the famous Googler and entrepreneur Avinash Kaushik on tips for data presentation, particularly the importance of moving discussion quickly off data and onto insights and actions.

But if the occasion is a strategic discussion, any occasion about taking action on data, then you need to get off data as fast as you can.

No skill is more in demand than the ability to communicate the “so what?” when it comes to any occupation that deals with data. Just go to a job search website and search through job postings using words like “research” or “data” or “analyst.” You’ll see the ability to uncover strategic insight and recommendations from data as a requirement in virtually every single job posting.

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Research Lessons from American Idol

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I haven’t watched American Idol in years, but I still remember the cringe-worthy auditions of those who claim to be the next Idol yet can’t carry a tune to save their lives. For some, it’s hard to objectively evaluate their own talent when there is so much at stake.

Psychologists have coined the term “motivated reasoning,” a tendency for people to reason in ways that allow them to form or maintain desirable beliefs (e.g. that they can sing). They may readily accept information that supports their beliefs as valid but question information that challenges their beliefs (remember how angry those contestants were at the Idol judges?).

In a similar vein, research should not be conducted by those who have a stake in how the research findings turn out. This may seem obvious, but I’m surprised by how often it still happens.

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