Design and market trends operate in cycles – what was popular in the 1980s will most likely resurface (watch out for those acid wash jeans!).
The latest trend concerns big data and measurement. How many Twitter followers do you have? How long does a user spend on a web page? How many times was your article shared? Entire companies and products grew out of this trend – Google Analytics and Radian6 lead the way in analysis of web site and brand traffic.
Are these trends overrated?
Of late, there’s been a push-back amongst marketers and designers to rely less on digital statistics and more on human emotion. Aarron Walter, user experience design lead for MailChimp, recently published “Designing for Emotion,” a book that uses psychology and common sense to create human connections via design.
Likewise, there’s a famous quote from internet marketer Gary Vaynerchuk, saying “What’s the ROI of your mother?” in response to a question from a CMO. (Strangely, we now know the answer).
Art & science
Increasingly, marketing and design choices are coming from what feels right rather than a list of numbers. The sentiment was echoed in Walter’s latest e-newsletter, On My Mind.
Great design starts with an opinion, and a personal perspective. It’s not born from a metric-sh*t-ton of data but by principles you define and trusting your gut. That’s not to say there’s no room for listening to customer feedback to correct mistakes or discover ways to improve. It’s something I do everyday with my team. But that process needs to follow design vision, not direct it.
Walter’s point matches that of HB’s: data must work alongside design decisions to result in the best user experience. Finding the balance between art and science provides the key to a successful online solution.
