PRE-S: Stack Overflow are conducting their annual developer survey, and they’ve sponsored this issue to share it! Take the survey here and contribute to important research that will help us all to get a better understanding of the design and dev market.
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Hey Reader,
Today I want to talk to you about data and business metrics.
Did I lose you already?
Did your eyes glaze over when you started thinking about spreadsheets and charts?
That’s okay. An understanding of data often doesn’t come naturally to us creative folks (myself included). In fact, we’re often a little afraid of it.
It’s easy to see why it makes us uneasy: unlike the subjectivity of creative expression, data is scientific and absolute. It’s hard to argue against. And while we like to say that “design is at the intersection of art and science”, it can sometimes feel like the science of hard data is the more important part of that duo in a business setting where the artistic value of design is much harder to measure.
Every designer I know has a story of woe that centers on data; whether it’s having to cram too many things in “above the fold” on a website because the data said it’d get more clicks, being unable to get polishing and fine-tuning the quality of UI on the roadmap because there’s no clear metric it’d directly improve or having beautiful brand-forward projects deprioritised because they can’t be attributed to conversion in the data.
But despite its role in disappointing decisions like these; data is not the enemy of beautiful, creative work. It’s actually a tool that we can use to make our work stronger.
Data is storytelling
Here’s the thing about data: while it may seem on the surface to be cold, hard numbers, it’s actually telling you a story.
It may not always be an enthralling novel with twists and turns that you’d devour on a beach holiday, but it’s a story nonetheless. About how your work is performing, what impact a design change has had on the business, the habits of your users, the opportunities for improvements…stories full of rich detail that you can learn a lot from. But data won’t just tell us what we need to know outright.
We can’t expect to pull a story from data by passively reading a spreadsheet full of numbers or watching bar charts rise and fall. Simply looking at numbers isn’t useful unless we dig in to what they’re telling us. We have to ask questions of the data to understand what it’s trying to say.
- Where does our highest-converting traffic come from?
- What page do most people sign up on?
- What signup button do they click?
- What do they do next?
Questions like this can help you to uncover the story of a users path on your site and allow you make informed decisions about what to change or test in your designs.
If you have any sort of analytics connected to your website, the data is there waiting for you. You just have to hunt for the story.
This line of thinking really helped the team of passionate creatives I lead at ConvertKit to embrace data in their workflow. They’re masters of their craft and care deeply about how their work builds and impacts our brand. But they’re much more inspired by beautiful visuals and ambitious people than by spreadsheets full of data.
By thinking of metrics updates in our meetings as ‘telling data stories’ they’ve been able to learn from what the data is telling them and spot opportunities to lean in on things that are working, or quickly act to change the things that aren’t. So it’s a mindset I encourage you to take on to.
The next time you dive in to a chart, a spreadsheet or an analytics tool; don’t try to read it. Instead ask yourself “What story is this telling me?”.
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What’s your relationship with data like? I’m currently writing about using data to check our ‘gut instinct’ when it comes to design performance for my book, and I’d love to hear how you feel about data and accessing it. Reply and let me know!
Share your perspective for the annual Stack Overflow developer survey
Every year Stack Overflow conducts a huge survey about the tools, technologies and careers of developers–by which they mean ‘people who write code’ so even if you’re someone who is currently learning to code or a designer who sometimes codes (like me): this is for you!
I know many of us are self-taught when it comes to code and it can be hard to know if you’re learning the “right things”, so surveys like this–where a huge chunk of the industry participates–are incredibly valuable in spotting trends in tools and technologies (and for learning what others are paid to see how your compensation compares!). If you write code at all, even as a hobby, go fill out the survey to add your perspective. Think of it as an internet census where the more people who fill it out, the more we will all benefit collectively from the insights!
Personally I’m looking forward to seeing how median compensation has changed this year compared to the 2021 results, especially for the designers-who-code who were one of the lowest paid groups compared to years of experience with a median salary of just under $52k.
So if you write code for work or for fun, take 10 minutes to share your thoughts.
| Fill out the survey |
This type formatting helps you read faster
It’s called Bionic Reading and it’s an API that puts “artificial fixation points” on words to help you read faster.
Your eyes take in the bolder letters and your brain completes the rest of the word. Comparing the two texts above: did you read the one on the right faster? I definitely did!
As a designer, when I saw this doing the rounds on Twitter I of course starting thinking about typography and fonts and what Bionic Reading would look like when applied to a website. It seems like a fantastic use-case for variable fonts (where different weights, widths and styles are within the same font file rather than being separately downloaded or installed).
I’m not sure if Bionic Reading will take off or not, but I enjoyed learning about it this week because it shows there are still innovations to be made in even things as simple as text on a screen.
I’ll end this issue with the results of the sneaky lil poll in last week's issue:
I was surprised to see that:
💡 54% prefer light mode
🌑 46% prefer dark mode
Apparently I’m not as alone as I thought I was in favoring light mode in my apps!
Hope you have a good week,
Enjoy this issue? Click the heart to let me know 💜