Data-driven design is a data-based, strategic design approach that aims to create web/app/software or any other digital product on the basis of available user-data gathered using a number of techniques such as user interviews, analytics interpretation, surveys, research and so on.
The end goal of any data-driven design effort is to create a user-centered digital experience by offering a product that caters to their needs.
**Why Data Driven Design?**
One of the most important and most common reasons why we need to adopt data driven design approach is that designers who design products are not the end-users of those products. In other words, designers don’t design for themselves; they design for real users who are going to use the product and hence it is critical to know what those real users want out of the product. And one of the most effective ways to find out this answer is to listen to the data that designers gather from potential users.
**How to Get Started with Data Driven Design?**
The first step to start with a data driven design approach is to talk to existing or potential users. If you already have a user-base; talk to them and identify their pain-points with your products.
There are a few methods for listening to existing users:
**1) Understand Analytics**
In order to understand what your users are doing with your current product, analyze your analytics data (Google Analytics is a great tool for this). Understand where they are going on your website or app and where they get stuck. This will help you spot the faulty parts on your app or website. You can also notice user browsing patterns from Google Analytics. This will tell you the typical flow your visitors take to surf through your website while taking desired action.
**2) Talk to real users**
Another useful method is what we call User Interviews. Talking to your real users and finding out what troubles them and what they love about your product. You can do this by conducting formal or informal interview sessions with your customers.
A general practice to conduct user interviews is to identify some of your users who would agree to talk to you. Once you have them for interview, ask them the most common, yet most important questions, such as; what they like about your website, how they visit, what is their usual visiting pattern, how long their visit lasted and what makes them leave it before completing their desired action.
Customers revealing real answers to these questions can be a real gem for you. If you get to know the answers to these questions, you are halfway through your data driven design.
**3) A/B Test**
Another popular method is to conduct A/B Tests on your website or app. An A/B test is simply a test of two different versions of the same element (such as banner, call to action button, headline, price, color etc.) on your website.
An effective A/B test can tell you which version of your tested element is more popular among customers.
For example: If you want to redesign your home-page using data driven design approach, you can conduct A/B tests with two different designs of the home-page. You could direct a few users onto the first version of the design, while directing other users onto the second version. With a test like this, you can find out which version retains or converts more users during a specific test duration.
There are many free and premium tools available to conduct A/B testing. The most popular ones are:
