Ask HN: Are you satisfied with insights you discover using analytics platforms?

[HeyShayBY]

I assume that HN users who work/own a company are very data-driven. There are amazing analytics and BI platforms out there that want to help businesses understand their data. I have a serious crush over Domo :) My question to everyone here is: Are you satisfied with whatever platform you're using? Does it actually help you discover meaningful insights about your business every day/week?

I've had experience using Mixpanel and a lot more platforms, and mostly they are used as an SQL replacement.

It feels like there's still a huge gap between what you can understand from your data, and what existing platforms help you discover.

What do you think?

[charly1811]

I personally started collecting and analyzing data about my projects only 3 months ago. Google analytics really helped me with one of my Android apps. It helped me discover where my users come from, the parts of my app they were most engaged with and also helped me fixed many issues I never experienced myself. Although these numbers can really help understand how people uses your product, they are still numbers and cannot express a user's feeling about a product at 100%

[HeyShayBY → charly1811]

Thanks for the reply. What's your background? Do you consider yourself analytical?

My feeling is Google Analytics is really not for most people, it's quite unfriendly. What do you think?

[charly1811 → HeyShayBY]

Sorry it took me so long to reply (Hacker News does not offer notifications and I was busy with school)

I am an Android Developer. I can say that I am analytical (In the sense of thinking logically). I agree that the interface of Google Analytics is a little bit messy (and don't get me started on the mobile app) and it took me a while to start understanding how it works.

Based on my experience with Google Analytics I think that the most important thing when it comes to analyzing data is not to know what every piece of data means but it is about knowing how to interpret the specific piece of data you need. Therefore I think that Although Google Analytics can be difficult at first, knowing exactly what piece of data you need and how to analyze and interpret this data is the key to use it properly