SEED magazine had a tiny article about how web datamining is an inefficient way to conduct scientific inquiry with large datasets, the reason being that any such dataset cannot really have been created with the goal of answering the scientific questions that a research team happen to have decided to ask. I’d like to expand upon this idea: Continue reading
I was looking at some promo blurbs for marketing and web-analytics, discussing how to formalise testing for optimal conversion rates on order forms. (‘Conversion’ usually means the completion of an e-commerce transaction, resulting in a sale).
One phrase in particular tickled me when I came across it: “unsupervised thinking”. As in, we really don’t want the end-user doing that. In fact, the less decisions the end-user is allowed to make during the entire process of taking their money from them, the better.
Which immediately makes you think, “What the hell? Can’t we be trusted to do business online without being coerced, spellbound, distracted, hypnotised or seduced?”. It leaves you feeling… manipulated. Continue reading