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Why Every UX Designer Should Be a Data Analyst
Don’t worry: It’s not as scary as it sounds
Now before you have a Statistics 101–induced myocardial infarction, we should get a few things out of the way.
Math and I haven’t always gotten along.
Who am I kidding? Math and I still don’t really get along. When it comes right down to it, I even went as far as choosing my university based on where I could take the least number of math classes and still graduate. Turns out, at the right university, zero math classes are required to get a degree. All of this is to say that I haven’t taken a math class since I was junior in high school.
The reason I started with this confession is that I don’t want to scare anyone away from the incredible power that data provides to a designer. With the right tools and the right context, being able to access data insights can fundamentally change a company’s success with product releases. We do, however, need to be realistic about our data and analysis maturity. Being a product designer for Adobe Analytics, I’ll be the first to say that I’m about the furthest thing you can get from being an actual analyst. I know just enough to be dangerous. But I also know that there are some very small changes that designers can make in our use of quantitative data that will make all the difference.
