Can Good Design Survive in a Data-Driven Environment?
Session Title
Can Good Design Survive in a Data-Driven Environment?
Presenter
Navin Prasad, Netflix, Inc.
Session Type: Discussion
More and more websites now employ A/B Testing to serve their users different experiences and measure their performance against business metrics. A consequence of this approach is that designs that may perform well from a testing perspective may not match up with what we, as UX designers, envision as a good user experience.
This discussion explores the various issues inherent in designing web and software interfaces within these “data-driven” environments. The key questions are: Does “good design” result from test-driven approaches? And how can designers balance the need for good user experience with the goals of the business?
If A/B testing only measures the effect of incremental changes, how can creative breakthroughs emerge? And do users in test-driven situations truly know what’s best for a product? How can we explain the success of Apple, a company well known for it’s reliance on instinct, in contrast to the success of Google, a company famous for testing the most minute of details?
There may not be definitive answers to all these questions, but the hope is that the resulting debate will bring into sharper focus the various positions on the matter, the benefits and the challenges. This discussion will be most engaging if participants are from a range of companies: consumer & enterprise, agency & corporate in-house, large & small.
Some of the discussion takeaways may include:
* Itemizing cases where data-driven decisions have been highly valuable in shaping a good user experience, and cases where they have possibly had a negative design impact
* Proposed approaches for balancing business needs for quantitative data with design needs for qualitative success
* Tactics that could help in arguing for design qualities that are difficult to test (emotional, aesthetic, behavioral aspects) but are “the right thing” to do design-wise
(Copresented with Uday Gajendar, an interaction designer and graduate of Carnegie Mellon’s IxD Program, who has worked for companies including Oracle, Adobe, Cisco, and most recently Netflix.)
Biography
Navin Prasad is a designer and engineer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is currently Senior Interactive Designer at Netflix, Inc., the leading online DVD subscription service, rated the #1 retail Web site for customer satisfaction multiple times by ForeSee Results.
Navin holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is continually exploring the ways that technology and storytelling come together. Additional info can be found at www.navinprasad.com.
Discussions
Can Good Design Survive in a Data-Driven Environment?
Session Title
Can Good Design Survive in a Data-Driven Environment?
Presenter
Navin Prasad, Netflix, Inc.
Session Type: Discussion
More and more websites now employ A/B Testing to serve their users different experiences and measure their performance against business metrics. A consequence of this approach is that designs that may perform well from a testing perspective may not match up with what we, as UX designers, envision as a good user experience.
This discussion explores the various issues inherent in designing web and software interfaces within these “data-driven” environments. The key questions are: Does “good design” result from test-driven approaches? And how can designers balance the need for good user experience with the goals of the business?
If A/B testing only measures the effect of incremental changes, how can creative breakthroughs emerge? And do users in test-driven situations truly know what’s best for a product? How can we explain the success of Apple, a company well known for it’s reliance on instinct, in contrast to the success of Google, a company famous for testing the most minute of details?
There may not be definitive answers to all these questions, but the hope is that the resulting debate will bring into sharper focus the various positions on the matter, the benefits and the challenges. This discussion will be most engaging if participants are from a range of companies: consumer & enterprise, agency & corporate in-house, large & small.
Some of the discussion takeaways may include:
* Itemizing cases where data-driven decisions have been highly valuable in shaping a good user experience, and cases where they have possibly had a negative design impact
* Proposed approaches for balancing business needs for quantitative data with design needs for qualitative success
* Tactics that could help in arguing for design qualities that are difficult to test (emotional, aesthetic, behavioral aspects) but are “the right thing” to do design-wise
(Copresented with Uday Gajendar, an interaction designer and graduate of Carnegie Mellon’s IxD Program, who has worked for companies including Oracle, Adobe, Cisco, and most recently Netflix.)
Biography
Navin Prasad is a designer and engineer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is currently Senior Interactive Designer at Netflix, Inc., the leading online DVD subscription service, rated the #1 retail Web site for customer satisfaction multiple times by ForeSee Results.
Navin holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is continually exploring the ways that technology and storytelling come together. Additional info can be found at www.navinprasad.com.