Kristen Tang

…rove conversions by 0.4%. But if you look at the whole experience, it’s really starting to degrade. That’s the type of result you get when you myopically optimize your product based on data points and single-digit improvements to conversion, without considering the overall experience.

This is dangerous because not everything is an optimization problem that can be solved with data. Basing all of your decisionmaking on data points that you can measure right now can lead to you losing focus of important macro aspects of the problem you’re trying to solve.

Great design understands that the average layperson can’t always articulate solutions — they only know they have a problem. It’s up to the designer, who lives at the intersection of technology and the creative arts, to come up with new ways of solving that problem. The designer can make unexpected connections between subjects and solve the problem in new ways.