Going back to look at the Groups area, the header says “Groups You Belong To” but immediately below that it says, “There are no groups.” I initially took this literally, but now see in the right column, you can choose “All Groups.” What might help is to reword that sentence to say “You don’t belong to any groups.” Change the page to then say, “Create One or Join an Existing Group” and then display existing groups below on that same page.

I’ll update the blog post above to reflect this.

Thanks for the comment,

Brian

Thanks for the comment!

There are definitely companies on both sides of the spectrum. You’re of course right that user research to form a hypothesis which can be tested by analytics is highly effective and a best practice. In the case of the campaign, Siroker did not mention direct, in-person user research sessions however their work with Google Website Optimizer was user testing in a way, albeit indirect. From other campaign staffers, I do know that they heavily used surveys and polls, both site-wide and highly contextually, so listening to VOC was valued.

Brian

I hope companies aren’t using Google Analytics or any analytics to replace users but rather supplement the user research they performed. Analytics can be used to validate user findings and uncover similarities and differences in research. In other words, user research may require a deep dive based on what is learned from analytics. Do you know if these are used together?

Thanks,
Robin

I will caution, though, that not all surveys are created equally. We’re dealing with the human psyche, which is a complicated thing. It’s important we ask questions very carefully to ensure we are getting accurate results. For example, the Myers-Briggs test is a scientifically proven method for assessing personality. If you’ve ever taken it, you know how thorough and accurate it is. The results you get are very different than you would get if you simply asked someone to describe his or her personality.

I also worry that we sometimes ask about task completion in too simple a manner for us to gain actionable insight regarding why the task was or was not completed. Because our sites and customers are complicated, figuring out how to solve for the gap between intention and action requires the analysis of millions of variables. We have to ask carefully selected follow up questions and perform detailed analysis of actual site usage in order to better understand the underlying reasons for task success or failure. Such analysis—especially when it includes understanding customer mindset—requires complicated methodologies and can’t be made actionable by simply asking if customers completed their tasks when they visited the site.

Full disclosure: I work for ForeSee Results, so I am clearly biased towards the ForeSee methodology. However, I was a client for six years at Borders.com and TowerRecords.com before joining ForeSee six months ago, so I can attest to the value of measuring customer experience the ForeSee way.