Data and design blog #1: communicating the possibilities of what data can do

Data can do incredible things. Data science can make sense of large amounts of real-time information to provide better insight for policymakers dealing with complex and evolving problems, can help identify and target those at risk to help service providers offer more preventative and tailored services, and open data can democratise information and empower citizens to behave in ways that helps them, society and the environment. But it needs a design wrap around to make it ethical and effective (and achieve the social impact that balances out any concern over using data). Over the last 6 months, Uscreates has been applying service design techniques to a variety of data projects. This series of three short blogs summarises how design can be used to deliver effective data projects by:

• 1 (this blog): Communicating and raising awareness of what data can do with those involved.
• 2: Ensuring that user need and/or public good sits at the heart of the work.
• 3: Designing good experiences throughout the data project (from data collection to insight use and round again), thus increasing its impact and the public good value on which the public often base their acceptance.

Our four data projects have been with:

• The Open Data Institute, to explore with two local authorities how open data can drive public services. In Kent, open energy data has been used to help identify elderly households that might be in need of insulation services to prevent health problems. In Doncaster, open data has been used to democratise careers advice for learners.
• nuron — a tech SME which has created fibre optic technology to provide real-time waste water monitoring — to understand how different roles in water companies would use this data, and how the interface is best presented to allow them to take the decisions and actions needed.
• The EU Policy Lab, to design and prototype speculative uses of blockchain in order to engage the public and policymakers in how it could be used beyond the financial industry through their Blockchain4EU project.

Communication and raising awareness of what data can do with those involved.

Raising awareness of what data is and what computer techniques can do is important as it is a step in how people make decisions in whether they think the project is acceptable or not. Research finds that there is a very low understanding of data science (only 12% have heard much about it) despite us experiencing its use everyday. However, unless people understand what it can achieve above other traditional policy methods, they will dismiss data science projects. Data is a complicated and technical issue. Introducing innovative uses of data to non-technical partners requires sustained effort to explain and check understanding about how, for example, data science differs from regression analysis, what web-scraping is, and how open data is not the same as open information. Getting people to engage with and experience data through well designed interactive data visualisations is clearly important, but it takes time to design them. As you are doing so, communication design is effective at explaining data terminology and techniques to non-expert partners or the public in the following ways:

• Graphic design can visualise and simplify complex messages and information. At its very purist sense, well-ordered information with reinforcing images can help non-data experts understand what data science is. In partnership workshops in Kent, we used images of case studies to immediately bring to life what open data is and can be used for, and how raw data is different from information.
• Lateral inspiration to show how it works in other sectors. A common innovation technique is to look out ‘horizontally’ at what other sectors are doing and apply it to your own industry. In workshops in Doncaster, in order to use open data to democratise careers advice, we provided visual examples of how open data was being used to identify and create new bus routes or shift behaviour so that residents put their bins out on time.
• Provocations to push people into a transformative space. In co-design sessions, the challenge is often around helping people to step out of the constraints of the present and imagine a different future. In the nuron co-design workshops, we gave participants provocative speculations such as ‘what if Google owned a wastewater business?’ and ‘what if a hurricane meant it was too dangerous for teams to go out and respond?’ to help them get into a different creative space.
• Prototypes make things tangible. In the Blockchain project, we created a 3D model of a blood transfusion drone enabled by blockchain together with provocation posters/scenarios to engage EU civil servants in how they might be able to use it in their policy areas.

Four ways in which communication design can raise awareness of the opportunities of data. From top left: online data ethics game www.datadilemmas.com; case study of Citymapper open data example; prototype of a blood transfusion drone; provocation workshop card for sewage water monitoring technology.

If you have been using communication design to engage non-experts in your work, please get in touch as we’d love to hear more examples. Or if you know you want to make better use of your data, and would like to design how with your staff or stakeholders, do get in touch.