In Part 1 I explained how data-driven design is significantly improving the way people interact with technology by pinpointing areas that could be a bit more user friendly. But just applying any data to the design process won’t necessarily remedy your UX woes. It takes a much more wide-ranging plan of attack.

There's a lot of buzz surrounding data flying around at the moment. Some people are even saying that data – and its applications – is revolutionary. (It isn't, they're not.) The most revolutionary thing about data-driven design, in fact, is that it isn't revolutionary at all. There's no major legwork or process change required to start implementing it – the data is already there. There's potential for data to be logged every time an employee clicks a button on an internal application, or every time a customer fills in an online form. All you have to do is cast out a net.

All or nothing

Data doesn't tell the whole story, and relying on just one or two data points can be deadly. Take a sign up form redesign as an example. If, after the redesign, the click through rate (CTR) goes up by 5%, the designers might proudly state that it's due to their work.

But that could be a false assumption. The spike in CTR could have been caused by something else, like a new traffic source. And without additional data to prove it (i.e. showing that nothing else changed since the redesign), the designers could take further work in the wrong direction.

So adopting data into the design process should be all or nothing. Using too little – i.e. just enough to get some insight, but not enough to see the bigger picture – will lead to confusion. Every touch-point needs to be monitored, so that you can be 100% sure it's your change – and nothing else – that's made the difference. 

No silver bullets

No one tool or methodology will solve all of your problems. Mixing hard data with right-brain, creative design can lead to some wonderful things – happier customers and more productive employees, to name a few. But it's still only one of a number of tools you can use to get ahead. Forget the bigger picture at your own peril.

Find out how Mobility as a Service (MaaS) from Certus can help build user friendly apps to transform the way employees and customers interact with your enterprise technology.