Everything I needed to know about stats I learned from Flatland

The story of Flatland is of a world geometric shapes that evolve to see the world as multi-dimensional. The same can be said for analyzing stats, often stats are viewed in one-dimensional and need to evolve to multi-dimension to create a strategy.

Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which straight Lines, Triangles, Squares, Pentagons, Hexagons, and other figures, instead of remaining fixed in their places, move freely about, on or in the surface, but without the power of rising above or sinking below it, very much like shadows….

― Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

The lure of stats is our belief that numbers mean something. Bounce rates, conversions and channeling; each looked at alone give the illusion of insight. Much the same way residents in Flatland originally viewed all shapes as one point, reading one stat gives us only one insight.

Take for example the all-powerful stat of bounce rate, lower is better higher is worse on a landing page. This is true, except when you are looking at (for example) a landing page with an in-page conversion. The bounce rate does not tell you if a conversion is being converted. Looked at alone the bounce rate becomes meaningless.

The next step of evolution in Flatland was seeing two-dimensions, seeing the corners and understanding the basic shape. The new point of reference opens up a whole new world or perception, lines become squares, triangles or hexagons – things start taking shape.

In stats by adding a second data point things start taking shape. Tracking the conversion from the landing page as well as the bounce rate gives us new perspective. All of a sudden that high bounce rate is exactly what you want if it comes with high conversion. Now we can start seeing how the page is really performing.

Like in Flatland there is still something missing, we still don’t see things completely the way they really are. In Flatland they took the leap and discovered a third dimension, height. All of a sudden the square becomes a cube, a triangle a pyramid and a circle a sphere.

Add a third data point to our landing page; for example source. By adding source you may realize that the page has a high bounce rate and high conversion rate for organic traffic but a high bounce rate and low conversion rate for PPC. This gives a high level view of the landscape and a clearer view of what is really happening with the landing page.

Once we have reached this third dimension of stats we can take the final leap alluding to at the end of Flatland , discovering the fourth dimension - strategy.

As a UX consultant, I often am brought in because there is a roadblock to reaching goals and business objectives. Frequently the problem is that the stats are being looked at in only one or two dimensions. Once the third dimension is drawn, the third data point is added then the problem can be seen clearly and we can create a strategy. We can see performance is low for PPC and create a roadmap for testing and create clear benchmarks for success.

A stat alone is meaningless, two stats are just a hint but three or more stats give you a strategy.