
How Data Can Help You Design Better
The route to success in design is never a fixed one, but ever evolving. Intuition and artistic vision are one way to reach it. Over the past years this human driven side of design got support in form of data. Today we have more information provided by valuable users than ever before. Numbers are a representation of what people want to accomplish with a product and we gather this information in form of data. Designers now have to learn from it — meaning to learn with the help of data about people’s preferences and behaviour — and they have to make sense out of the nuances of data.
Data matters

With the help of data designers can measure the quality of an experience. Data is precise and accurate. They can use data as valuable input for their design process. It helps them to understand people in complete new ways. Data fills the space of problem solving with infinite possibilities as designers can learn more and more about customers. Designers then might be able to extract design principles from all they data they analyse.
For example, they can make a text smaller to better show off a certain product as a hero so that people grasp what a company is selling on their website or change the background colour in an app from white to black to give focus to certain features and direct users better. Or the other way round, by putting a light colour behind longer texts it gets better readable for customers on screens and they stay longer on a website or app and consume the full information.
Data has the ability to show if changes like the ones mentioned improve the user experience. Hence, data-driven design lets data drive many of the decisions made about a design. In this way designers create better products and experiences, and in the end build better solutions for people.
We argue to approach design not only as an art, but as science as well. It is not only about pushing an unproven idea and being an artist, but identifying weaknesses to support a company’s specific goal.
Data scientists and designers can learn here from each other. A data scientist when analysing a pile of data may consider a particular odd pattern as an outliner, but a designer might see it as an opportunity to create something new. While a data scientist can take on complex data to help designers understand them deeper. And on the other hand the designer might find a focus and create a connection from the data to the messy real world.
Our time right now requires to think, feel and do everything with the help of data to change the world for good. Data can start insightful conversations, and together designers and data scientists can ask the right questions and interpret data stronger. The importance of them working together cannot be ignored.
Two types of data

Quantitative data is numeric and informs us what people do with a product. The product and experiences we design define which data we can collect. In this way quantitative data can be limited (by design). While qualitative data is the non-numeric part of data and focuses at the ‘why’ of a situation. Quantitative data is a rich source of research and input for the design process though it goes hand in hand with qualitative one. Only together, they provide the complete story. It is when you combine the numbers with the behaviour patterns, you can conquer your challenge.
Reading between the lines using data
In a design process it is important to use both survey data as well as behavioural data in a design process.
For example, if you ask a set of cab drivers to rate their driving on a scale of 1 to 5 it is imperative that they would give a good number, because they think they drive well. It is only when you check the behavioural data on the same question about how many tickets have they been issued, how many rides they take on an average, how much time they take to cover a particular distance, that’s when you’ll get to know the appropriate result. In a survey you could ask them about the quality of roads they cross and about the vehicle they drive. We believe on basis of both the outcome will be a better design solution for your users. Such insights become a key to read between the lines to design smartly.

The human element
Design when done right, has the capability to change the world. It is not only a styling tool and can do so much more. Data is an integral parts to identify developments and often able to tell us more than we ask. It makes us also question if we ask the right questions.
Design is turning the information that we can extract and analyse from data into meaningful insights that people can use. Design gives data the human side and draws connections to the world we live in. Data itself doesn’t innovate. It shows us patterns and predictions. But it is unlikely to create the next unicorn alone. Data would might show that the new idea you’re working on is way too weird or crazy to start a new company or build a new product. But data coupled with a designers ability to imagine can be powerful. Designers make things personal and emotional and they use design to tell stories. Data should guide, not dictate. Design is a crucial component of invention, but it is also a tool like data — together they can be a great force. Designers should harness and leverage the power of data and not forget their own power to rewrite the rules of design to reinvent and ultimately change the world.
The relationship between data and design is evolving and we believe this is just the beginning. There’s so much more to experiment and learn from the wonders data can help us create. How do you define your relationship towards data? How are you combining data and design in your work approach? We’d love to hear your thoughts.
Love,
#TeamCreate





