The Use of "Customer", "User", and "Human" in Design & Development

Proof that I am not a professional cartoonist.

Customer. User. Human. These words get swapped around in product design and development in ways that can be confusing and seem equivocal.

Let's start easy.  Human. We know what that is. You, me, and that guy at the karaoke bar singing "I Will Survive". Human is an inclusive term. Your users and customers both fit under that umbrella.

So, if it is such an inclusive term, why do we have Human-Centered Design (HCD) and User-Centered Design (UCD)? Couldn't you just use HCD and be done? That depends.

Shaping Your Message Through Keyword Analytics and Data-Driven Content

As promised in the last post, the discussion of Google Analytics continues with discussion of how to acquire and apply data to make your product more successful. As with the previous post, we will look at the obvious bits and then dig a bit deeper to identify a not-so-obvious trick.

In the early days of web analytics, people seized on keywords for search engine optimization, to try and drive more traffic to their web site or application. The value of that is declining for various reasons, but there is a greater value you can obtain from keyword data - understanding your customers better and shaping your message to deliver what they want through data-driven content.

And it's from a place you might not think to look.

Google Analytics - Acquisition Channel Data for Better Targeting and Product Improvement

As promised in the last post, the discussion of Google Analytics continues with discussion of how to acquire and apply data to make your product more successful. This time, let's focus on acquisition data, the information that tells us how people are finding your site.

Combine this with analysis of your referrals, and you can artfully sculpt more successful customer engagements and conversions, but you can also find some great information to help improve your product, engage your customer, and produce data-driven content. Let's talk about how.

Google Analytics and Product Intelligence - Web Site Traffic & Page Views

About a month ago, I explained how to get started with Google Analytics. Now that a month has passed, there should be enough data to populate the various analytics pages (analytics pages without data are not very informative).

The sheer amount of information and options can be a bit overwhelming at first, so let's start with the thing people most commonly want to know about their site - traffic in the form of page views and how we might turn that information into useful, actionable product intelligence.

Design Thinking, the Elevator Pitch

Design Thinking is still a concept that suffers from 1) misunderstanding and 2) being dismissed as a new word for an old thing. Because of this, all design thinkers, at one point or another, are put into the position of evangelizing for design thinking.

So, let's think about how we might create an elevator pitch for design thinking and, along the way, we will probably give ourselves lots of great material for evangelizing the concept as well.

Setting Up Google Analytics For A Website

Google Analytics is just about everywhere, and it's a powerful tool for understanding your audience and the content they care about.  However, it may not be active for your site. When you create your own site, you need to do a few steps so insure its active on your pages.

The good news is that it's pretty easy.  Let's get started!

Personas - Buyer vs. Customer vs. User

The other day, I was talking to a friend about the important difference between the buyer, customer, and user of your product.

For a product to be successful, we need to not only understand our personas, but we also need to understand their relationship to acquisition and usage of the product. While the end user of your product may be your ultimate customer, they may have almost no say in the decision making process of the purchase. So, to give your product the opportunity to be their amazing solution, it's good to take a moment to decide who the "real customer" will be at given stages.