How Data Influences Me in Decision Making

Based on my experience to create a solution in every project during college

Arya Bariz Wicaksono
Nov 5 · 2 min read
Image Credit : unsplash.com

My Background

I was a final year students and average project that I’m working on is related to UX. Project types vary from college assignments, competitions, and part time. At first I always ignoring data and using instinct completely. But, after I studied UX research method, statistics, and data analyst. I was amazed how the data collected and analyzed can influence decisions to show a picture of the current situation.

This writing based on my opinion and maybe what you experience can be different. Making a decision is certainly determined by the situation. If decision cannot be seen with data such as people’s feelings, about aesthetics, and unsure about behavior or reputation please use your instinct.

Gathering and Analyst Data

At this stage because I’m college student, I maximize the network of friends and take advantage of my student status.

In general, according to its nature data is divided into two, qualitative data and quantitative data. In scales there are nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio. Actually there are many more but this is the most common one I use and its use depends on conditions.

Well, back again how do I get data to be analyzed. Usually through a google form survey, field research, news, paper, and online data providers. Sometimes I get data that has been processed in the form of infographics to speed up the decision making process. For raw data I usually change it into an easy to understand visual form like a bar chart.

There is three main data management to analyst data :

  1. Descriptive analyst to view current condition then find pain points and opportunities.
  2. Predictive analyst to forecasting data based on past event
  3. Prescriptive analyst to view problem and find solution

I usually use descriptive analyst and prescriptive analyst because mostly my project is about ux.

Here what I considered before performing data collection and analysis :

  1. Know What I’m Doing. Make list to do like I want to redesign this app, improve feedback for user, looking for problem in society, etc.
  2. Know How to do it. Make a decision on method to gather data why using it and why is it important. Sometime using template questionnaire like SUS (System Usability Scale) or UEQ (User Experiment Quietionnare) is great. Or do user interview to collect qualitative data is a great moves too.
  3. Know The Limit. We don’t want to be overwhelmed by data, right? And by adding limitation prevents us from overthinking.
  4. Understand the Source. Choice of source is very important to avoid bias, we don’t want our efforts to be in vain right. Please avoid sources like family and close friends, because they can’t respond as is, there are factors maintaining good relations and fear of offending.

Arya Bariz Wicaksono

Written by

Product Design and Data Enthusiast | Information Engineering student at UGM Indonesia | aryawicaksono.com

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