UX DESIGNFOR STARTUPS

Mirror mirror on the wal... 魔鏡啊魔鏡 ~( 原文為 Mirror mirror on the wall... ，白雪公主的後母的經典台詞）

We all love to brag sometimes, right? OK... at least most of us

do. Numbers are one of the greatest bragging tools. Their

meaning always depends on the context and they’re just so

easy to manipulate. If a SaaS application brags about 4 million

pageviews, but they don’t have any paying customers, would

you call them successful? I wouldn’t.

　　有時候我們都喜歡吹牛，對吧？ OK ... 至少大多數人都是這樣。數字是最容易被拿來吹牛的東西。它們的意義總是取決於上下文，並且容易操作。如果一個 SaaS 應用程式（網路租用軟體服務）吹噓他們有400 萬的瀏覽量，但他們沒有任何付款的客戶，你會覺得他們成功嗎？我不會。

The number of pageviews is a typical vanity metric for almost

all SaaS applications and many other web startups. What’s a

vanity metric? As Brad Smith nicely put it: “Vanity metrics are

things people love to quote and obsess over, even though

they’re almost entirely useless to your business.”

　　瀏覽量的數據幾乎是所有 SaaS 應用程式和許多網絡創業的一種典型虛榮指標。什麼是虛榮指標？布拉德 · 史密斯（ Brad Smith ）說得很好： “虛榮指標是人們喜歡引用和迷戀的東西，即使它們對你的業務完全沒用。

Vanity metrics make the naive among us feel good, but at the

same time they push the whole business into an endless

depression of idleness. Vanity metrics are absolutely unactionable

and therefore useless. They’re a waste of time that can destroy

your startup.

　　虛榮指標讓天真的我們感覺很好，但同時，他們讓整個業務陷入非常憂鬱的閒置。虛榮指標是絕對不可訴的（法律用語），是沒有用處的。他們是在浪費時間，使你的創業崩潰。

To give you a couple more examples: time on site is a vanity

metric, so is the average number of pageviews per user, or

the percentage of new visitors.

　　再給你幾個例子：網站停留時間也是虛榮指標，所以應該要平均每

個用戶的瀏覽量，或新的訪問者的百分比。

Some vanity metrics are more tricky. In UXPin the “number of projects

with comments” was one of them.It seems to be a reasonable

behavioural metric that was supposed to let us check the engagement of

users in commenting on a feature. Well... it didn’t. The number itself

didn’t tell us anything. Some users don’t have people to share a project

with, some rather like to export a PDF and attach it to a project

management tool, etc. This metric couldn’t tell us about those cases and

overall it just failed to provide us with the appropriate knowledge to make

any decisions. We killed it to stay focused on what’s really important.

　　有些的虛榮心指標是更加麻煩的。在 UXPin （網頁設計工具）“註釋項目”是其中之一。它似乎是一個合理的量表，讓我們觀察用戶使用的功能。嗯 ...... 事實並非如此。數字本身並沒有告訴我們任何東西。有些用戶沒有人來共享項目，有些人比較喜歡的導出 PDF 文件，並將它附加到一個項目管理工具，這個指標沒辦法告訴我們關於這些案件的整體，它沒辦法決定向我們提供的知識。我們結束它，把注意力集中於真正重要的東西。

That’s my recommendation to you: keep up with the important

metrics and kill the vanity ones. Less is more.

　　這是我給你的建議：跟上的重要指標，並放棄的虛榮指標。少即是多。

Do it over and over again!做一遍又一遍！

After several weeks of madness in UXPin we managed to get off

our knees and start to properly measure the right metrics. That

was a relief! Finally, I didn’t feel completely stupid and we

started to learn from our users. Great! We used Google

Analytics and everything that was important was right there; we

could see all the metrics with our own eyes.

　　經過幾個星期的瘋狂使用 UXPin ，我們設法把我們的架子放一旁並開始測量正確的指標。這是一種解脫！最後，我並沒有感到愚蠢，我們開始學習我們的用戶。太好了！我們使用 Google Analytics （分析）的一切，是很重要的，就在那裡，我們可以用我們自己的眼睛看到的所有指標。

Did it cause the necessary change? Nope.

造成必要的改變？不。

Nobody seemed to care about our shiny, super sexy metrics, apart

from two UX designers (including me), who cared a little, but not

nearly enough. Our approach wasn’t actionable. Metrics were

separated from product development cycles, which should never

happen!

　　似乎沒有人關心我們充滿魅力的指標，除了兩個 UX 設計師（還有我），誰在乎這一點，但還很不夠。我們的做法是不採取行動。指標從產品的開發週期分離，這不應該發生！

How can you expect people in your company to care about

metrics if you don’t let them see the influence they have?

Every product development cycle should result in a positive

change of metrics.

　　你怎麼能指望你的公司的人關心指標，如果你不要讓他們看到這些影響呢？每一個產品的開發週期導致積極變化的指標。

Then we came up with a ridiculously obvious idea: why not set

goals based on metrics and check if we’re on the right track

weekly? This single thought set our minds on fire and we

started weekly measurement cycles with monthly and

quarterly sum-ups.

　　然後，我們突然有一個明顯可笑的想法：為什麼不在每週的指標上設定目標來檢查，每週？這種單一的思想，令我們的腦海中著火了，我們開始每週測量週期的月度和季度的總和。

How could we not have come up with the idea of

measurement cycles earlier? I have no idea. When we had

them up and running they seemed so obvious.

　　我們怎能不拿出與測量週期早期的想法嗎？我不知道。當我們讓他們建立和運行，他們顯得那麼明顯。

After all - you measure to optimise your business, not measure

for the sake of mere measurement, and a weekly control of

metrics forces the whole company to focus on business

optimisation.

　　畢竟你使用測量來強化你的業務，而不是為了單純的測量而測量，利用每週的指標迫使整個公司專注於強化業務。

That was the shift that we were looking for

這是我們正在尋找的轉變。

Suddenly, the whole company started to care about our

metrics. Goals helped us focus on really important things.

They clearly showed where we are and how our work

influences business. Metrics became powerfully actionable. If

we started to fall short of our predictions, we could take

almost immediate action and correct ourselves based on

knowledge gathered weekly.

　　突然，整個公司開始關心我們的量表。目標幫助我們專注於真正重要的事情。他們清楚地寫出我們在哪裡及我們的工作是如何影響業務。量表成為有力且可操作的。如果我們開始低於我們的預測，我們幾乎是可以立即採取行動，在每週更正自己的基礎知識。

Here’s the table that we use:這裡，我們使用的表：

Your table might look different - it depends on your business

model and the current stage of your company. We’re a SaaS

company with steady growth and decent traction, so this kind

of funnel makes sense for us.

　　你的表可能看起來不同 - 它取決於你的商業模式和現階段的公司。我們一個 SaaS 公司要穩步增長並有吸引力，所以這種量表對我們有意義。