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I'm sorry, but I have yet to hear a solid argument that ignoring easy-to-capture metrics is better business. I'm not talking about anything esoteric, I'm talkin

by unalone 18y ago

I'm sorry, but I have yet to hear a solid argument that ignoring easy-to-capture metrics is better business. I'm not talking about anything esoteric, I'm talking about core business metrics, like the number of people who sign up for your service. That's because a lot of people, namely the intuitive sort, don't track that stuff enough for there to be a good counterargument. That said: intuition has long been a part of design. Architects don't design buildings according to a numbers game: there's a part of the process that's wholly creative. Obviously, artists don't rely on metrics. They go with their gut. Numbers can show some things, but not always. Would you say that Rotten Tomatoes, by being fair and balanced, is really showing us the best movies? Is Toy Story 2 the best movie ever made? According to their reviews it is. According to ticket sales Titanic is the best movie ever. Are either of those metrics true? If I make a movie expressly intending to score better numbers than those movies, am I doing justice to a movie? Get rid of this "right decision" argument. Past a very basic point, that's all subjective. There is certainly an objective layer design, but past that it's a matter of "like" and "don't like." The argument is like the Mac versus Linux argument, where one side says they "feel" better and the other side brings up numbers. The numbers are accurate, but to assume that the other side has no argument merely because they base opinions on intuition is stupid. (By the way: there's more to a business than number of users. I'd rather have a site that had a very bright, small userbase than a site with a lot of users that I personally didn't like. Hacker News versus Digg, for instance.)

whughes 18y ago
Hacker News isn't a business. It's a site. A business has to make a profit.
- unalone 18y ago
  But 37signals is making a profit. Quite a lot of a profit. So after they're making money, isn't it their choice whether or not to follow their gut? Obviously the results are working for them.
  - ryanwaggoner 18y ago
    Of course it's their choice. That doesn't mean it's the optimal choice or one to be admired.
    - unalone 18y ago
      Yeah, I get that. The problem is that "optimal" is misleading, because making money isn't the only goal of opening a business. Would you say that David Lynch is a suboptimal director? His movies aren't enormous hits. He hasn't won for Best Movie. But those aren't his goals. Similarly, sometimes the people developing a site have more at stake than maximizing profits. Sometimes they want to make gorgeous web pages or gorgeous processes. And there's no optimal procedure for that. Some people look at it another way. The 37s team obviously treats design as a sort of art rather than an exercise in optimization. As it happens, they make better products (in my opinion) than the people who go the other route. So they serve as a sort of inspiration. That's my point. The argument is not entirely meaningful, because there are two things happening at once, and you can measure the one but not the other.
  - whughes 18y ago
    But not all designs are equal in terms of profit yielded. A business which chooses a design that produces more profit than another design will have more profit. That business will therefore be more successful than one which chooses a less profitable design based on their gut.
    - unalone 18y ago
      Give me a real-world example of two companies, all other things even, that made a similar service where the one that won did so because its designers used metrics rather than "taste".
      - ryanwaggoner 18y ago
        Comparing company A to company B is not entirely useful here, because so many other things are going on. However, there are loads of examples where a company used metrics to drive design for higher profits. Best example is probably Google.
ryanwaggoner 18y ago
I think designers should use their gut and artistic skills to design. But I think the effectiveness of that design should be judged on some quantifiable set of metrics, to the extent possible. Business isn't an art contest.
- unalone 18y ago
  Of course it is. There's no guide for "how to make money." Usually, wealth is created by making something that doesn't already exist. Similarly, the high-quality services that result from the impulsive process would be stifled if those same designers worried too much about quantification.

by unalone 18y ago

whughes 18y ago

Hacker News isn't a business. It's a site. A business has to make a profit.

unalone 18y ago
But 37signals is making a profit. Quite a lot of a profit. So after they're making money, isn't it their choice whether or not to follow their gut? Obviously the results are working for them.
- ryanwaggoner 18y ago
  Of course it's their choice. That doesn't mean it's the optimal choice or one to be admired.
  - unalone 18y ago
    Yeah, I get that. The problem is that "optimal" is misleading, because making money isn't the only goal of opening a business. Would you say that David Lynch is a suboptimal director? His movies aren't enormous hits. He hasn't won for Best Movie. But those aren't his goals. Similarly, sometimes the people developing a site have more at stake than maximizing profits. Sometimes they want to make gorgeous web pages or gorgeous processes. And there's no optimal procedure for that. Some people look at it another way. The 37s team obviously treats design as a sort of art rather than an exercise in optimization. As it happens, they make better products (in my opinion) than the people who go the other route. So they serve as a sort of inspiration. That's my point. The argument is not entirely meaningful, because there are two things happening at once, and you can measure the one but not the other.
- whughes 18y ago
  But not all designs are equal in terms of profit yielded. A business which chooses a design that produces more profit than another design will have more profit. That business will therefore be more successful than one which chooses a less profitable design based on their gut.
  - unalone 18y ago
    Give me a real-world example of two companies, all other things even, that made a similar service where the one that won did so because its designers used metrics rather than "taste".
    - ryanwaggoner 18y ago
      Comparing company A to company B is not entirely useful here, because so many other things are going on. However, there are loads of examples where a company used metrics to drive design for higher profits. Best example is probably Google.

ryanwaggoner 18y ago

I think designers should use their gut and artistic skills to design. But I think the effectiveness of that design should be judged on some quantifiable set of metrics, to the extent possible. Business isn't an art contest.

unalone 18y ago
Of course it is. There's no guide for "how to make money." Usually, wealth is created by making something that doesn't already exist. Similarly, the high-quality services that result from the impulsive process would be stifled if those same designers worried too much about quantification.