Power to the people? How democratising big data can bring better results

Zone’s Head of User Experience, Tory Dunn, has been thinking about how users and customers can become meaningful players in the big data game…

Anyone in our industry who works with data to make things better, and thinks about the process, will have come across a conundrum: the act of deciding what data will be collected changes the nature of how a product or service is designed and engineered. It’s all a bit quantam physics-y… think Schrödinger’s cat plus a digital make-over, this time without a whiff of animal cruelty.

There’s no doubt that big data is the most powerful driver of innovation in the digital age, but the provenance of data is certainly an issue — as the poor cat would agree.

Where do users and customers come into this discussion? When the data comes from human activity, the common issue has been about what rights creators have over the use of the harvested output of their activity — the data. Concepts like Sarah Gold’s data licensing project explore how the uses of data can be transparent, giving data creators the ability to set their own parameters of use.

Running alongside these developments are approaches to innovation through end-user engagement, e.g. co-design and co-delivery — in which end users of services are actively engaged in the creation of the product or service and its delivery.

These two schools of activity seek to empower users, yet appear to be separate because they engage with the product or service at two different points — one is working with the outputs (the data) and one is working with the process of design or delivery. Is there really a fixed chasm between the two? Why aren’t we finding ways to get the best out of the two approaches together?

Looking at individuals’ use of data within their lives, we see things like the quantified self — personal data tracking being used for individuals’ own decision making as well as being a new way to give shape and meaning to memories. And we see open data giving people the opportunity to use existing data streams for their own projects and campaigning. These are both empowering for users and begin to democratise the world of big data.

But could people, individuals, move upstream to the point where decisions are made about what data is created and collected; moving the discussion from being about being the data “crop” to becoming conscious producers and directors of data?

Co-design has become part of the regular landscape of product and service design. See the initiatives from Lego and Nike creating online platforms for users to share their product designs, or the NHS working with patient panels in designing services.

Now that data can be viewed as a “design material” shaping the nature of products and services, isn’t it time to invite end users to co-design that material; to help decide what data will be produced and collected?

To come to a decision about what data will be collected, you have to decide what is the aim of the product, service or activity. This new co-design is an invitation for end users to collaborate in setting and tracking KPIs. In an interview for the Big Bang Data exhibition, Usman Haque, founder of data-driven design agency umbrellium, observes that when you move user engagement to this formative point, the dataset itself is no longer the end goal. Instead, business and design decisions that create the dataset take centre stage.

Putting people in control of what data is created as well as making decisions based on that data is an empowering edge, and it’s starting to lead in some sectors. In medical research, research boards are starting to include patients in funding decisions. Asthma UK, a leader in this describes it as involving individuals in shaping “our research strategy by deciding which questions are most important to people with asthma, and what research will have the biggest impact on their quality of life”.

We can imagine how this could become part of the product design process for the internet of things or other data-rich products and services. For example, could fitness equipment users decide on the data-points that will influence the next wearable? And could the resulting open data feeds influence civic planning of recreational spaces?

These ideas are speculative, but the point is that when end users are involved in the development of products and services, the end result is more robust and engaging — good for customers and also good for business — and this is a modern form of engagement. We also expect that conscious involvement of users in planning and designing data will result in faster evolution of products and services.

The future is about data and cats (obviously). And it’s about people having a say — not only about how our data is used, but about the shape of the data-influenced products and services that we are all contributing to.