The Product Team: A Solution for Web Analytics Analysis for Smaller Companies

Project Description

 

This paper was submitted a final research paper for Professor Sula's Foundations of Informations course. The purpose of this paper was to discuss how UX practitioners and data scientists leverage web analytics to increase revenue for their organizations while also making suggestions for small companies to do similar types of analyses. I first explained what exactly is meant with web analytics analysis followed by detailing the current workflow of a UX researcher and data scientist. I also examined similarities and differences in their skills, how to utilize web analytics, and how they complement each other. I also provided cases studies on two companies that currently use both UX research and data science teams. Finally, I proposed the solution of an integrated product team along with some resources that may be used for a smaller companies to conduct similar analyses.

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Method

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I began this research paper by first writing a proposal which needed to be approved by my professor.  I then followed it up by conducting a comprehensive literature review of existing works relating to both the UX research and data science fields in academic journals. I did this to survey any understand what research that existed currently as well as inform my knowledge on the fields. The literature review initially began by searching academic articles but I quickly found that there were not many academic articles on the topic. I had to broad my scope my searching through company blogs, case studies, and identifying writings (often in the form of medium posts) from those employed in these roles. After completing a draft of my work, I circulated it to my classmates and professor for review and found that my content was lacking in some areas. I addressed this issue by conducted even more research on the topic, made the appropriate edits to the content, and finally reformatted my paper so that it was easily understood.

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My Role

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I was responsible for all aspects of this project.

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Learning Outcome Achieved 

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Critical Perspective - Students understand the broad social impact of data and are able to raise critical questions about data, its interpretation, and visualization, and the methods by which these are produced.

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Rationale

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Critical Perspective - The goal of this project was ultimately identify an intersection between UX research and data, two areas of which I'm interested in. To do so, I conducted research on both fields, examined case studies, and presented the idea on integrated product team. The integrated product team is a solution for small companies to conduct analyses to create data-driven designs or make data-driven decisions. Additionally, as these disciplines track and examine user information, I raised some concerns relating to data privacy and data storage. I presented the EU's GDPR and Californias Consumer Privacy Policy as potential ways to combat these concerns. By combining the two areas, I've demonstrated my ability to thinking broadly about the social impact of data and presented an idea to improve on the methods in which data is interpreted and analyzed.