Adventures with Programming & Data Analysis
I’ve really liked learning Python have taken several workshops recently: Intro to Programming, Ruby on Rails, and prototyping with Axure, at General Assembly. They’ve been really awesome! I have signed up for their Data Circuits course as well, to better handle data.
Qual =/= Quant
As a UX researcher, it’s easy to gobble up qualitative data but less easy to take in quantitative data. Numbers aren’t a natural language to me. Quantifying as many data points as possible (8/10 participants did this, 3/15 selected) don’t feel genuinely telling of behavior. Maybe I’m second guessing myself as a data analyst, but the more I focus on finding data in my work, the more I question where the less obvious data is that I’ve been missing, yet have impact on my analysis. I’m also more aware of my own biases in analyzing data. Lots of work to do here…
Process and Comparison
I’ve always liked learning languages, or trying to learn them. I may never really speak Arabic, Farsi, French, or Spanish, but it feels good to practice, especially when I understand byte of foreign language from TV (sans subtitles) or passing a gaggle of tweenagers on the sidewalk! Like they say, math, computer science, programming, are like learning languages and it’s been very true. Taking programming helps me understand “deep organization” (go with me on this thought process) and the logic of digital systems. Likewise, my tendency to organize is getting better and more efficient. It feels like I’m internalizing a processing system and building habits around processing…altogether will make me better about noticing, receiving, storing, and objectively analyzing data for my UX research.
Reads & References
- General Assembly, Programming for Non Programmers
- Workshops @ General Assembly (Look for updates to this roster!)
Image source: Nan Sanders Photography
XO,
H
Hannahloulou 