"Data-informed design" entries
The intersection of data and design is equal parts art and science
Data-informed design is a framework to hone understanding of customer behavior and align teams with larger business goals.
Editor’s note: this is an excerpt from our forthcoming book Designing with Data; it is part of a free curated collection of chapters from the O’Reilly Design library — download a free copy of the Experience Design ebook here.
The phrase “data driven” has long been part of buzzword-bingo card sets. It’s been heard in the halls of the web analytics conference eMetrics for more than a decade, with countless sessions aimed at teaching audience members how to turn their organizations into data-driven businesses.
When spoken of in a positive light, the phrase data driven conjures visions of organizations with endless streams of silver-bullet reports — you know the ones: they’re generally entitled something to the effect of “This Chart Will Help Us Fix Everything” and show how a surprise change can lead to a quadrillion increase in revenue along with world peace.
When spoken of in a negative light, the term is thrown around as a descriptor of Orwellian organizations with panopticon-level data collection methods, with management imprisoned by relentless reporting, leaving no room for real innovation.
Evan Williams, founder of Blogger, Twitter, and Medium, made an apt comment about being data driven:
I see this mentality that I think is common, especially in Silicon Valley with engineer-driven start-ups who think they can test their way to success. They don’t acknowledge the dip. And with really hard problems, you don’t see market success right away. You have to be willing to go through the dark forest and believe that there’s something down there worth fighting the dragons for, because if you don’t, you’ll never do anything good. I think it’s kind of problematic how data-driven some companies are today, as crazy as that sounds.”