A lot of these times departments are trying to justify their own existence by using data in self serving ways.
If you are reading a spreadsheet on user data you might notice that people are going into search, quickly finding something and leaving the site.
Your boss is screaming at you that the higher ups want more “engagement” so you start tweaking the search.
After a few button presses you see that on average people are searching, clicking on a video and watching for a bit, watching another video, going back into search and looking up more videos, scrolling and then finally clicking and watching a full video.
You run to your boss and brags that search now has 3x engagement as people are watching more videos for longer per search.
We all get a promotion and celebrate how much better search is now that people are spending time in it longer.
A lot of these times departments are trying to justify their own existence by using data in self serving ways.
If you are reading a spreadsheet on user data you might notice that people are going into search, quickly finding something and leaving the site.
Your boss is screaming at you that the higher ups want more “engagement” so you start tweaking the search.
After a few button presses you see that on average people are searching, clicking on a video and watching for a bit, watching another video, going back into search and looking up more videos, scrolling and then finally clicking and watching a full video.
You run to your boss and brags that search now has 3x engagement as people are watching more videos for longer per search.
We all get a promotion and celebrate how much better search is now that people are spending time in it longer.