Does anyone have experience with app analytics -- knowing what to track, what tools to use, etc. in order to make assumptions about user behavior and iterate/improve?

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(Why: I'm not there quite yet, but want to be planning/learning ahead so that I know what to be looking for and what kind of setup I need.)

Chad Becker · Answer

Hey Liz. I wonder if the Capital One presentation spurred this question ;). From a usability and user experience POV, I think that user interviews if you can get them would be the best to learn how people liked using the app, where their painpoints or hangups are, and what suggestions they have that would make it better for them and keep them coming back. These are the questions worth focusing on now. We talked to a few rando beta users like this, and we learned a lot from them. I think that will be more cost-effective than putting instrumentation/tracking into the code at this stage. (Exception: tracking metrics that show your app is gaining traction and hype is good at this stage in case you want investor money, so like landing page conversion rate, number and rate of user signups, daily active user count). The way I see it, instrumentation and tracking aren&rsquo;t as cost-effective or time-efficient until you have a stable functional app that a lot of people are using. To me these are optimization techniques: what you learn from these will let you tweak the product to please more people at a more micro-level. It is definitely very useful for getting data on how people are primarily using your app and what features they gravitate to, but I think only when you have critical mass. Until then, learning from conversations from people may cause you to make more major changes to the app that would throw any instrumentation//tracking code out the window. I know how I would track some behaviors at a low level in the code, but I&rsquo;m sure there are also some tools out there, but I haven&rsquo;t used them. It is worth noting that tracking user behavior may also let you personalize the experience to some degree, and if the data you get is useful to other parties, you may be able to sell anonymized data. Let me know if I didn't describe my opinion well enough or if you want to chat more.

Does anyone have experience with app analytics -- knowing what to track, what tools to use, etc. in order to make assumptions about user behavior and iterate/improve?

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