Skip to main content

Hacking my way into analytics: A creative’s journey to design with data

Growing up, did you ever wonder how many chairs you’d have to stack to reach the sky?

No? I guess that’s just me then.

As a child, I always asked a lot of “how many/much” questions. Some were legitimate (“How much is 1 USD in VND?”); some were absurd (“How tall is the sky and can it be measured in chairs?”). So far, I’ve managed to maintain my obnoxious statistical probing habit without making any mortal enemies in my 20s. As it turns out, that habit comes with its perks when working in product.

Growing up, did you ever wonder how many chairs you’d have to stack to reach the sky?

My first job as a product designer was at a small but energetic fintech startup whose engineers also dabbled in pulling data. I constantly bothered them with questions like, “How many exports did we have from that last feature launched?” and “How many admins created at least one rule on this page?” I was curious about quantitative analysis but did not know where to start.

I knew I wasn’t the only one. Even then, there was a growing need for basic data literacy in the tech industry, and it’s only getting more taxing by the year. Words like “data-driven,” “data-informed” and “data-powered” increasingly litter every tech organization’s product briefs. But where does this data come from? Who has access to it? How might I start digging into it myself? How might I leverage this data in my day-to-day design once I get my hands on it?

Data discovery for all: What’s in the way?

“Curiosity is our compass” is one of Kickstarter’s guiding principles. Powered by a desire for knowledge and information, curiosity is the enemy of many larger, older and more structured organizations — whether they admit it or not — because it hinders the production flow. Curiosity makes you pause and take time to explore and validate the “ask.” Asking as many what’s, how’s, why’s, who’s and how many’s as possible is important to help you learn if the work is worth your time.



from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/3eKq5zH
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Max Q: Psyche(d)

In this issue: SpaceX launches NASA asteroid mission, news from Relativity Space and more. © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/h6Kjrde via IFTTT

Max Q: Anomalous

Hello and welcome back to Max Q! Last week wasn’t the most successful for spaceflight missions. We’ll get into that a bit more below. In this issue: First up, a botched launch from Virgin Orbit… …followed by one from ABL Space Systems News from Rocket Lab, World View and more Virgin Orbit’s botched launch highlights shaky financial future After Virgin Orbit’s launch failure last Monday, during which the mission experienced an  “anomaly” that prevented the rocket from reaching orbit, I went back over the company’s financials — and things aren’t looking good. For Virgin Orbit, this year has likely been completely turned on its head. The company was aiming for three launches this year, but everything will remain grounded until the cause of the anomaly has been identified and resolved. It’s unclear how long that will take, but likely at least three months. Add this delay to Virgin’s dwindling cash reserves and you have a foundation that’s suddenly much shakier than before. ...

What’s Stripe’s deal?

Welcome to  The Interchange ! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign up  here  so you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. This will include everything from funding rounds to trends to an analysis of a particular space to hot takes on a particular company or phenomenon. There’s a lot of fintech news out there and it’s my job to stay on top of it — and make sense of it — so you can stay in the know. —  Mary Ann Stripe eyes exit, reportedly tried raising at a lower valuation The big news in fintech this week revolved around payments giant Stripe . On January 26, my Equity Podcast co-host and overall amazingly talented reporter Natasha Mascarenhas and I teamed up to write about how Stripe had set a 12-month deadline for itself to go public, either through a direct listing or by pursuin...