When we entered the age of big data, many of us assumed we had left the age of big risk. We didn’t have to guess anymore. We didn’t have to go out on a limb. We’d follow the numbers, the “truths.”But time and time again we’re finding that it’s not that simple. No matter how good the research is, big data is nothing without big context.
The promise of big data is a complicated one. When I hear most non-statistical people talk about big data, they believe it will answer all the questions they have about their business. Big data is just making sense out of larger data sets that may not be historically the data everyone has focused on in the past.
Once you break down what big data is and what it isn't, the question then becomes how to use it. Context is extremely important. Not just in the form of survey or research, but in the form of humans that have been working in the business. The human intuition and psychology of consumers is just as important as ever. Just as before there was big data, organizations combined data with business acumen to make the best decisions. Nothing has changed with big data. There has to be business acumen to combine with the big data finding to build the best product and have the best marketing strategies.
This article looks at Microsoft and Windows 8 to put this into context.
Microsoft’s engineers discovered that people were doing less of the time-consuming writing and creating that had once been the norm. Increasingly, users were socializing for short bursts.
The research also showed that people loved having “touch” functionality and were avidly consuming small pieces of live information.
Consequently, Microsoft decided that Windows 8 should feature navigation that enabled multitasking and quick interactions, and that it should also have touch and live tiles.
People love touch. I love to touch on my iPad and iPhone all the time. However, those devices are more intimate than a computer. They don't have the bulk of a computer and they can sit on my lap or I can hold them up.
It turns out touching a screen on a computer is very hard over time. While little touches here and there will work, overall it is literally a pain to touch on a computer. After time your arm will become tired and a trackpad can solve many of the problems. While I believe at some point there will be a touch interface that makes sense in a computer, to have the whole interface built around touch does not make too much sense.
But what people say and what they do are two very different animals.
This is so important to understand when doing any research. It goes back to the famous Henry Ford quote of "If I would have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse."
Context is important, but so is psychology. Customers don't think beyond using the devises or tools they have when answering questions. They want a computer to solve a problem that another device should solve, but thats just because they don't know about the other device.
Also, doing research on what a customer would do if they were given a choice of the following is very deceptive. I never believe what a customer says they will do, I always rely on what they do in combination of what they say. When you combine the two, you get the truth which is always somewhere in the middle. Remember to never change an entire strategy based on customer surveys of "what they will do if" questions.