How to collect data really really good

And be a good human being too

Who am I?• Work at Keen IO - sorry if the

wifi sucks :( and you're welcome if it rocks.

• 10+ years of web application programming (PHP anyone?).

• Have built and worked with many data collection tools across a variety of industries.

• Proud supporter of Movember.

Let's add analytics!• We just made the new uber of airbnb's for reptiles,

let's track all the user data: location, friends with reptiles, eating habits, and favorite other apps.

• Store the data now, figure out what to do with it later. Space is cheap, and we have access to a wealth of user information from their phone.

• We should track information not relevant to the product in case we pivot to the airbnb of ubers for mosquitos.

Why We Should Track All the Things

• Tracking user behavior gives us insights into product usage.

• We can build recommendations based on how others use the system.

• Find useful patterns of engagement, or use patterns to help determine which features are used most.

• Provide product personalization.

What Should We Think Strongly About When Tracking?

• Location data - People are very sensitive about others tracking their locations over time.

• Financial data - Tracking what a user buys over time could be somewhat invasive.

• Habitual data - Sites you visit, how long you stay on those sites.

Examples of “Creepy” Data

iOS and Location Data

• My phone never asked me to track my location and “learn” my commute.

• As a developer, I know how easy this is to do, but it still feels like an invasion of my privacy to do it without asking.

Ad Cookie Tracking aka Retargeting

• I searched for shaving products a while back, and looked at Harry’s web site, but this came from The New York Times’ web page.

• This site has nothing to do with different shaving needs, so why does it know what I was looking for? Creepy.

• This is even worse for more highly targeted markets like weight loss and dieting.

Avoid Being a Creeper• As a general rule of thumb, just don’t track things

that have nothing to do with your product.

• Don’t use location information for your product? Don’t track it!

• Let your users know what you’re tracking and why.

• Many won’t read about it, but if the information is there, those who care will read it.

Track Smartly• When dealing with geo location data, avoid

tracking with anything that can lead back to a user.

• Track based on a session id, not a user email address or name - add one layer of abstraction.

• Make sure your sessions have a fixed length (30-45 minutes is a good one).

• Blur the location data. Often blurring to within +/- 100 feet can help, but its generally not enough.

Make Sure Users Know What Benefits They Get

• If you are tracking something, make sure your users knows what benefit your product provides.

• Generally speaking, if your product doesn’t have to do with location, don’t track location to serve better ads.

If You Can, Track Aggregates

• If it makes sense, aggregate your data into cohorts or groups that make sense.

• Other people in the same geo-box.

• Others from the same ISP.

• It’s inherently less “creepy” to be part of a sum rather than a single point of data.

What Happens When You Don’t Track Smartly?

• Remember the whole position information log debacle from Apple?

• Location tracking files are stored on your phone unencrypted.

• Ended with a lot of bad press and some very vocal disgruntled customers.

• Facebook applications that would store your friend lists and all of their information.

• Why are my friends getting notifications from me that I never authorized?

Don’t Pull an Uber• Uber, as a product should be tracking location of

customers, but what happens when that information is accessible to people inside the company?

• Just because you are tracking something, does that mean you should easily be able to search through it? Is there a different way to track that information that still makes sense?

Looking Forward• As product designers and

implementors, we should track as many things as we can about our products.

• We have a moral obligation to consider the consequences and uses of what we track.

• Lets make All The Things better!

Thanks!

@alexk_k