I think this is true but it doesn’t have to be always a comparison. Mostly because, again, data is not truth. But people think it is and so increasingly they’re asking for data in research. But this lends itself to all sorts of data misuse. so to prevent that you need not only the metrics from lived experience but the cognitive and emotional understanding of those experiences to even begin to interpret what the heck those numbers mean.

So for us, with our stakeholders it’s people first, last and always. My brain loves data that coincides with what people say. We love seeing what people do. But tasks are different than motivation so I really need to get at why they do what they do and data— meaning number data seems to fall short in this arena. So I depend on another form of data and that’s a deep understanding of humanity.

What are the unconscious and subconscious triggers that’s resulting in those behaviors we’re measuring?

That’s where my design truth kinda lives.

But I do like using data to bolster insights it can be a powerful tool in its own right of discovery as well!