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Number 2 is standard. In my experience It's a form of logging more than a form of data collection.

by wackro 9y ago

firloop 9y ago
What's the difference between logging and data collection?
- gknoy 9y ago
  I work on a web application, and would love to have some metrics which I would consider "logging". The distinction I would make is, - Data collection is about learning things about your users - Logging is about learning what your users were doing when Something Went Wrong. Obviously, there's a _ton_ of overlap here, in that a lot of (all of?) the info one uses collects for one purpose could be used for the other. As a developer of the UI, however, my main concern is not about learning more about our users (our UX people already do that), but rather about understanding what happened, or which features are actually being used (so that we can know if they are safe to prune).
  - and0 9y ago
    I think a simple test for how innocent the UI logging is would be: does it get uploaded all the time or logged locally until a crash happens? If a company is hitting an external API with every interaction, I'm guessing it's for gathering data on user behavior. The question then is whether or not it's anonymous.
  - slaymaker1907 9y ago
    In reply to and0, you also need to keep in mind that companies alao might need to know which behaviors did NOT cause a crash to figure out the root cause of a crash as a sort of control group.
cableshaft 9y ago
I wouldn't say it's more for logging, it's most likely for analytics purposes. A/B tests, funnels (how many people who install the app launch it, how many create an account, how many swipe right, how many swipe right a bunch, how many write a message, how many write a bunch of messages, how many buy the subscription, what page did they click it off of, how 'attractive' (some arbitrary number based on how many swipe rights, possibly) was the person they decided to buy the subscription for, etc. Note, most sites that do analytics don't really care about who you are, individually, as a person, just how can they categorize you and your activities so they can generalize it and find ways to "improve the user experience" (read: improve how many users spend mucho dinero on our services). And it's gotten to the point that they're never satisfied and want as much data as they can get away with so they can analyze it from a billion angles and tell the developers to change everything about the app every other week in the chase for better numbers.

Number 2 is standard. In my experience It's a form of logging more than a form of data collection.

by wackro 9y ago

Number 2 is standard. In my experience It's a form of logging more than a form of data collection.

firloop 9y ago

What's the difference between logging and data collection?

gknoy 9y ago
I work on a web application, and would love to have some metrics which I would consider "logging". The distinction I would make is, - Data collection is about learning things about your users - Logging is about learning what your users were doing when Something Went Wrong. Obviously, there's a _ton_ of overlap here, in that a lot of (all of?) the info one uses collects for one purpose could be used for the other. As a developer of the UI, however, my main concern is not about learning more about our users (our UX people already do that), but rather about understanding what happened, or which features are actually being used (so that we can know if they are safe to prune).
- and0 9y ago
  I think a simple test for how innocent the UI logging is would be: does it get uploaded all the time or logged locally until a crash happens? If a company is hitting an external API with every interaction, I'm guessing it's for gathering data on user behavior. The question then is whether or not it's anonymous.
- slaymaker1907 9y ago
  In reply to and0, you also need to keep in mind that companies alao might need to know which behaviors did NOT cause a crash to figure out the root cause of a crash as a sort of control group.

cableshaft 9y ago

I wouldn't say it's more for logging, it's most likely for analytics purposes. A/B tests, funnels (how many people who install the app launch it, how many create an account, how many swipe right, how many swipe right a bunch, how many write a message, how many write a bunch of messages, how many buy the subscription, what page did they click it off of, how 'attractive' (some arbitrary number based on how many swipe rights, possibly) was the person they decided to buy the subscription for, etc. Note, most sites that do analytics don't really care about who you are, individually, as a person, just how can they categorize you and your activities so they can generalize it and find ways to "improve the user experience" (read: improve how many users spend mucho dinero on our services). And it's gotten to the point that they're never satisfied and want as much data as they can get away with so they can analyze it from a billion angles and tell the developers to change everything about the app every other week in the chase for better numbers.