| In his latest article, marketing operations practitioner Steve Petersen looks at how optimizing UI/UX elements can have multiple downstream repercussions — and he provides actionable advice on how to guard against such outcomes. Taking lead generation forms as an example, he shows how removing fields to promote form completion can result in a higher volume of marketing qualified leads but poorer quality sales qualified leads because potentially important contextual information is missing. What’s more, the information no longer collected at the initial form completion stage of the customer journey might need to be collected at a later stage and provision needs to be made for that to happen. “For example, when selling insurance, the final cost of a policy will require knowing a lot of detailed and sensitive information about the person covered,” Petersen says. “Does it make sense to ask for a lot of that information on an initial lead form, or does it make sense to gather just some general information and allow the salesperson to provide a ballpark estimate along with how various factors will influence the cost? There are pros and cons to both approaches, and each could be pursued depending on whether more total leads or more qualified leads are called for.” It’s even possible that information not collected at an early stage in the journey will need to be collected post-sale and involve other departments and multi-departmental orchestration. The key to managing these kinds of situations is understanding data flows. Where is data being collected, where it flows, and who is managing and analyzing it? That’s one way to mitigate against wasting time and effort on UI/UX testing that will ultimately not work out. Read More | 
