Last night Forward Role proudly sponsored Numberwang, a data lover's meetup held in Manchester City Centre. Numberwang gives anyone the chance to share their stories of data, discuss challenges they have faced, present their creative visualisation and explore new ideas. The audience is encouraged to debate, challenge and question – in a positive, communal way.
Numberwang #2 certainly delivered. The event is ran by Adam Lee (Head of Analytics at User Conversion) and held at the hidden UC office in NQ. Numberwang #2 was all about turning knowledge into understanding and myself, Aimee and Jess had a fantastic time at the event. We heard from three very insightful speakers who shared their experiences across UX, experimentation and visualisation.
Agata Adamiak kicked off the presentations with a great run through and breakdown of UX best practice – we discovered one size definitely does not fit all. Agata talked up through some case studies from big brands such as Etsy, Selfridges and Booking.com. She explained how by just assuming new features are going to be a hit, does not mean they will be! Etsy’s infinite scroll was a prime example; they saw minimal increase in conversion.
Next up, Frank Hopkins discussed how he has transferred his experience working with weightlifters and very noisy data in his Biomechanics Master’s degree to working as an Experimental Analyst at the BBC. Frank discussed the obstacles he’d faced when working on testing projects, which do not have a direct commercial benefit, but how he ensures value is always driven from his work. He explained that it is important to make sure the information is easily understandable for stakeholders without a numerical background and to always put context around your findings. For example, when explaining uplifts – 20%+ in conversion might sounds like a lot but if it increase from 1.6 to 1.9 is it worth the resources put in to it?
Finally, Lewis Carroll bought the left and right side of the brain together to deliver a brilliant logical and creative presentation. Lewis presented an award-winning piece of work based on the homelessness crisis in Manchester. We were told a touching story through imagery, data and messaging. Lewis collected the social data, did the analysis and then delivered it in an engaging and emotive way. Lewis proved that it’s all well and good to create an eye catching interactive dashboard with lots of graphs and tables… but you have to find the story yourself. Sometimes you need to be more creative to tell the story yourself.
As the evening came to an end, we all had a head full of knowledge and insight, and a belly fully of beer and pizza.
Thank you to Adam for organising a great event! We can’t wait for Numberwang #3!
If you are interested in speaking at the next event – get in touch with Adam on adam@userconversion.com.
Sophie Page is an Analytics Recruitment Consultant at Forward Role. Keep up to date with Sophie by following her on Twitter or connecting on LinkedIn.
