2010 is the 30th anniversary of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. Not only is his explanation of our universe relevant today, it can teach us a great deal about how to create better websites.

• 7:05 PM: AndreG Presenter: Mark Trammell – Twitter
• 7:13 PM: AndreG Astronomy vs Astrology – pseudo science that attempts to make sense to everyone vs. true science, measurement, fact
• 7:13 PM: AndreG Not unlike focus groups in modern day web development
• 7:14 PM: AndreG People talking about their feelings.
• 7:15 PM: AndreG On the flip side, going to where your users are is a means to an end to actually see and observe facts
• 7:21 PM: AndreG Natural vs artificial selection – we tend to shape the world around us quite aggressively
• 7:21 PM: AndreG Natural selection is like the standard design process
• 7:21 PM: AndreG Mock -> feedback cycle. Very standard
• 7:22 PM: AndreG We have ways to speed that up… eg. A/B testing
• 7:23 PM: AndreG How you choose what to measure during A/B testing is much more important than the actual changes you are testing
• 7:26 PM: AndreG If you don’t actually know what you want to get out of testing you will go down the wrong path
• 7:45 PM: AndreG Looking for anomalies in things like customer support tickets, diving in and trying to recreate the issue may reveal something huge. You may just open a door to something larger or better that you would not have discovered otherwise.
• 7:46 PM: AndreG It’s all about trying to uncover secrets
• 7:50 PM: AndreG Once you are open to questioning rituals and time honoured practices you find that one question leads to another. Just because you have done it one way forever doesn’t mean it is right (or wrong)
• 7:50 PM: AndreG The native faith can endure. New belief can impose itself. Hybrid culture can arise. Ideally, both suppositions can be shaken and something new arrives.