

Analytics - not just for optimization - trefn
http://blog.mixpanel.com/analytics-not-just-for-optimization

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eli
For all their analytics, you'd think they'd have figured out that I'm really
loathe to sign up for an account when there's absolutely no indication how
much it will cost to use it on my site. :)

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aberman
I think it's free for now.

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CWuestefeld
This kind of data has a different kind of selection bias.

When you're looking at user actions, you can't discern two different kinds of
behavior: (1) The user is doing what he _wants_ to do; versus (2) the user is
doing something because he can't figure out the alternative, or that
alternative is inconvenient/unwieldy.

So to a certain extent, the results of such studies can server to entrench bad
design decisions, rather than improve the system. The developers _always_ have
to look for every possible alternative explanation for a user's behavior.

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trefn
That's very true - analytics cannot entirely replace talking to you customers.
We still do that all the time.

They supplement each other quite well, though. Talking to your customers can
help negate the form of selection bias you bring up, and looking at aggregate
data can help you figure out if the needs of the most vocal 1% are worth
pursuing right now.

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onreact-com
Looks very promising. Some unique features. Does anybody use them already?

