Managing with Evidence: Tools for More Effective Website Management

Workshop Leader: Yvonne Shek & Gene Smith

Most web managers are faced with one of two challenges:

• Their organizations are reluctant to invest in research, so they make decisions based on their gut. But when it comes time to justify their choices–to explain how they know they made a good decision–they’re stuck. They have no evidence.
• They gather all the research, analytics and anecdotal data they can and use it craft the right strategy and design. But as they try to move their project through to implementation they’re faced with arbitrary decisions that strip the project of value. It could be a CEO who makes color choices, managers who are only interested in promoting their programs or services, or developers that create unusable interfaces.

In this workshop we’ll look at how to use evidence to:

• better understand your customers and their needs,
• improve your web strategy so it’s better aligned with your organization and your customers,
• make smarter decisions about interface design, information architecture, search engine optimization and application design,
• pick your battles,
• influence your boss, your team and even your CEO to do the right thing.

The session will focus on three areas:

• Gathering evidence — designing practical research projects, interpreting research so that it impacts strategy and design, and sharing your evidence.
• Making evidence-based decisions — understanding where research applies (and where it doesn’t), separating facts and assumptions, backing up your choices with facts.
• Influencing with evidence — communicating decisions and the evidence that supports them, being honest about what you know, picking your battles, and traceability and transparency.

We’ll do hands-on exercises in each section to illustrate core ideas and spur group discussion. Participants will leave with research, communication and decision-making tools that will help them increase their impact in their organizations.