A Plea for Data-Driven Design

Designers and consumers can co-design better services and solve their own problems in a way that’s more relevant to themselves and society.

I’d like to talk about data-driven design.

Gross domestic product, GDP, and CO2 are intrinsically linked – the more we consume the more we emit, can I prove it? Yes.

On this graph this is the world’s CO2 concentration in the last 250 years and this is world’s GDP, and you can see they follow a similar curve, especially in the last 50 years. It’s pretty simple really, in the last 50 years there’s been a rapid growth in the world’s population, communication, flights, through to international tourism, damming of rivers, water, paper, fertilizer, number of vehicles on the road and the clearest metric of all, the number of McDonalds restaurants. All of these things, use materials, use resources, and create waste, all of which increases CO2.

Although I think these graphs prove beyond doubt that CO2 and GDP are linked, somebody somewhere will interpret data another way and produce a graph that disproves this theory, which just makes people more confused.

About eight years ago, I read a book that changed my thinking: Small is Beautiful by E.F Schumacher. In it he wrote that statistics never prove anything, which for an international economist is a bit of a wacky thing to say, you might think.

What I think he might have meant by that is that data is interpreted, manipulated, turned into statistics by people who use that data to say what they wanted to say in the first place. I think if designers what to change behaviour on a global and a local level, on issues such as climate change, social cohesion, sustainable development, employment in Cornwall, then they shouldn’t interpret data, but they should present data in a way that is more meaningful to people, and then perhaps people will take ownership of the problem as well as the solution.

So take these graphs, for example. Although I think they’re really, really interesting, I have no sense of what I should do to change my behaviour because of these graphs, particularly if I want to continue consuming which I presume I do as I live in Western society.

But data driven design on the other hand can change behaviour. The energy meter, for example, is a great product that takes realtime data and presents it in realtime so that people can understand their energy consumption, take action, reduce CO2 and reduce their fuel bill. Whereas, let’s face it, when you get the electricity bill it is too late, you have already consumed.

So designers now and in the future, I think will present data in a way that enables people to make informed decisions about the way they use, make informed decisions about the way that they want to live their lives. Designers and consumers can co-design better services and solve their own problems in a way that’s more relevant to themselves and society.

Director of SEA Communication, Robert blends digital expertise with the power of personal interaction – working with community groups, young people and the ‘hard to reach’ to understand the issues that affect them then using design and media to enable them to communicate their views. SEA’s digital innovation work has also seen him working with a diverse range of clients including The Co-Operative Bank, the Parkinson’s Disease Society, Zurich Financial Services, Connecting Bristol and Gloucester City Council.