Let's say you have a process:
A –> B –> C

Design-Driven Thinking would ask:
“How to I design out B to get a person from A –> C directly?”

Metric-Driven Thinking would ask:
“How do I get a person from A –> B faster and then from B –> C faster?”

The main reason I think that business school don't focus on design is because the term leaves too much to interpretation. If you ask 10 people the definition of 'metrics' and 'design', you'll get a lot more agreement for 'metrics'.

The other thing that holds design back IMO, is that most of the 'design' companies I see today are more focused on aesthetics than functionality. True design combines the two.

That said, I'm not an expert and I'd really like to hear your opinions.

Metrics doesn’t replace strategy

And process doesn't replace intuition. One reason large companies lose their cutting edge is because the replace risk with process. Process and metrics are important, but gut feel has its place. Ultimately, the “vision” is based on gut-feel. There's a fine line entrepreneurs must walk between pursuing the vision vs. following the customer. Louis Mumford (architect and sociologist), when asked where to put a sidewalk, said “watch where they walk and pave their path.” I guess in this analogy, the sidewalk is the vision, but it will not likely weave the exact path you originally thought.

The power of process and metrics is not only that they help determine the path, but they can be used to halt failure. Both intuition and painting by numbers will lead to mistakes. But do you have phase gates that indicate failure? Track leading indicators that foretell problems? Mistakes are okay as long as you recognize them as soon as possible and don't repeat them.

Love your blog!

Brant

I'm more of a design-minded guy who realizes that metrics are important to understand, so it is interesting to read about your take as a metrics guy who values good design. Metrics seem to be useful for figuring out what people are doing: what is popular and profitable right now. They are less useful for figuring out the why or the merit of the what. Metrics reveal that more people use Windows machines than Macs, for example, but the numbers alone do not explain which machine provides a more satisfying experience, and whether a more satisfying experience is even something worth pursuing.

Even if you did a survey to figure this out, you would be asking people to make subjective judgments, and not all subjective judgments are equal. A trained composer would be able to better appreciate the nuances of a textured symphony in ways that the musically uninitiated could not. But, since there are more musically unsophisticated people in the world than world-class musicians, the metrics could sometimes stack up against the truly excellent in favor of the mediocre and more familiar.

While our society likes to talk about the box office that movies did, most movie fans prefer movies created by a few individuals with highly refined skills and sensibilities rather than the market-tested products that are produced by metrics-minded bureaucrats. Put another way, metrics can help us profit from well-designed stuff, but they cannot, on their own, generate the great designs that capture our imaginations and our wallets.

Iaax Page

On the other hand, Amazon still runs A/B several times a day on its site. I would say that for products it works, but for services like EC2 it has really hurt its usability. And I love EC2, I just wish it'd be easier to get to the info I want.

This is a great post. I am an investor, board member, or founder in a few companies driven by this metrics driven approach and am often conflicted on this issue. At its most basic level, i drive my teams to think about three things beyond the analytics:

1. Where do we want to go ?

2. How do we want to user to feel ?

3. What are the highest beta (craziest ideas) we can add to the product regardless of the data ?

And I have an example of something that I’m glad we didn’t give up on. The first version of our home page flash map sucked pretty hard. It comprised “Best destinations for <activity> and <activity 2> in <month>. We had a popup with information, but nobody got it. It was such a different implementation that people kept telling us it was confusing. We were close to taking it off and going with something more standard. But luckily we stuck with this basic concept and just tried different ideas around it, and our current homepage country map is among our site’s most loved features.