epistemologic

Cross-posted to Zolo Labs.

An interesting question cropped up over dinner the other night – does metrics-driven design have any place in the world of designer-driven product design? For instance, Apple is famous for not using focus groups and so on, and instead relies on their own processes and practices to develop their amazing products.

I’m a huge believer in Lean methods for developing products and building a business (I’ve written about this before, and spoken about it as well). I’m also a huge Apple fan-boy (yes, I wept when Jobs passed). And obviously, Apple does a lot of things right when it comes to developing products.

So how do these two ways of driving product design mesh with each other?

My point of view is that they’re not mutually exclusive. While there’s no substitute for vision (and thereby designer-driven product creation), metrics can serve as an excellent sanity check. They’re really guard-rails, guide-posts, safety-net, compass, or whatever analogy you want to use. They can be especially useful when the product is in a “new category” and where there may not be established usage patterns or user behaviors to draw from.

If you buy into the “iterations are awesome, fail-fast, learn-improve-repeat” process, then you really can’t do it without metrics. And, of course, you need the right metrics, but that can be a post for another day.