#44 - Being Data-Driven vs. Data-Informed with Hannah Shamji, Consumer Psychologist

There's a lot of data out there. Keeping track of Google Analytics, NPS scores, site metrics, usability test results, industry data, and everything else can be downright overwhelming. Which is why Hannah Shamji, Head of Research at Copyhackers, likes to say she's doing data-informed work, not data-driven work.

For Hannah, her team, and her clients, working with tons of data can be overwhelming. Since you can usually find at least one graph to support a research point, it's important to put data in context. Hannah outlined how she gets in the zone with large amounts of data, puts things in context while doing her best to stay unbiased, and frames data around her research questions.

Highlights

[2:12] The difference between being data-informed and data-driven.

[6:21] Why it's important to put data in context and pull from many different sources.

[9:25] How Hannah approaches data through the lens of her research question.

[16:40] How Hannah tries to build data narratives that tell both sides of the story.

[23:21] Digging deep into data is a little bit like meditating.

[27:07] Hannah, Erin, and JH chat about data and COVID-19. (This episode was recorded on April 24, 2020.)

About our Guest

Hannah Shamji is a Consumer Psychologist, formerly the Head of Research & Insights at Copyhackers. There, she helped clients create great, data-informed, copy and marketing strategies. She blends qualitative and quantitative research to tell client stories.