Strategy

I sometimes get asked about our name, why Analytic Design Group. People get confused and think maybe it has to do with site analytics. I will admit it is a little awkward, especially that confusion between analytics and Analytic. Every now and then someone tells me I need to rebrand, the name is just no good, they say.

Several years ago (2003 - 2005) when I was an Information Architect at Creo (a once-upon-a-time tech darling in BC that got bought out by Kodak) I learned a very valuable lesson about the weight that data and evidence carried over my in-depth knowledge of the content and IA (information architecture) of the site.

I have been doing a fair amount of speaking at various groups and conferences lately and have noticed that while I am telling the story of some deep-dive research there are always some people in the audience who are shaking their head or giving a bit of a tsk tsk when I talk about the unexamined assumptions some of our clients have made.

Stanley Marcus, of Neiman Marcus fame, once said, “There are only two things of importance. One is the customer, and the other is the product. If you take care of the customer, he comes back. If you take care of the product, it doesn't come back.” These days, that focus on customers and products comes together in the User Experience.