I agree that analytics, no matter how well collected and detailed, will never be a replacement for user observation. This system sounds like a great augmentation to usability testing, but the nature of people as fuzzy, mutable, and often unpredictable creatures makes direct observation the ideal (and often only) way to really understand what's going on in their heads. Analytics can tell a lot about what a person does, but not what he thinks. And people often think differently than their actions suggest - sometimes radically so. The problem with analytic data is it can lie about the user's intentions and perceptions and it's often impossible to tease apart intended and unintended behaviour. (I have similarly-grounded issues with eye-tracking technology.)
I'm a designer; I don't conduct usability tests but I rely on them - as well as other types of data - to inform design, and I can't imagine abandoning user observation, even a little bit. Actually, I'd be somewhat skeptical of relying solely on this type of system for incremental design. (I'm also wondering if they used this on their own site.) Offematica does sound really interesting, though. Cheers, Sylvania ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
