Companies are increasingly leveraging data to improve business processes, however it’s a lot lesser that they incorporate design into these efforts. Most companies turn to 'Design' only as an aspect of product innovation or in a limited way, for instance, in developing user interfaces.
While data and design are increasingly becoming the two powerhouses within an organization, fusing these two efficiently can supercharge innovation—in products as well as processes.
While organizations are investing in data and design capabilities individually, only those that tightly weave these disciplines together will unlock their full benefits. Integrating both data and design have shown and delivered superior results in businesses.
Why do you need to merge these two? It’s quite simple to answer. Today UX has undergone huge shift. Gone are the days when an engineer or a designer would come up with a decision based on their intuition and brief given to them. Today design is based on user generated feedback and expectations.
The other reason to bring these together is that designers cannot always predict what a user/consumer wants. It rarely happens that your design team will be going all out to see what’s happening around the world. Hence a data-driven decision will aid designers to create product that delivers customer experience.
Data in itself is useless. Data is useful only when it is designed in a way that makes the users understand. Thus, simply hiring both UX designers and data professionals to perform their functions (even in the same project) isn’t enough. Organizations need to enable the two functions to effectively work in sync.—so both together as one piece work seamlessly than different pieces of the same puzzle.
The simple Google home page is the constant reminder and proof of the way a strong design and data can both be at the heart of disruptive and sustained commercial success in a digital setting. Such is the power of design that it simplifies complex data.
Getting this cross-pollination right unleashes the ability not only to create exceptional, user-centric products and services but also improves business processes.A McKinsey research report hints that on an average 10 to 30 percent performance improvement is seen among companies that tightly interweave data and design capabilities to solve business problems and product innovation critical to the organization’s success.
In conclusion, to knit data and design together more effectively, companies need three key transformations:
- Moving from silos to integrated teams
- From disconnected workflows to deep mashup of skills
- From independent product innovation to a broader use across business operations
Data and design should work in a more synchronized fashion, like a rowing team, where cross-functional team members provide equal participation with each stroke fusing data and design in products and processes.
When data and design are thought to be "working together," It is because of the timely involvement of design researchers and visual designers called upon within a project life cycle to offer a user-centric perspective to solve problems across the organization. Data experts and designers can work like a squad right from understanding a business problem, identifying potential solutions, and developing the business case/ prototypes, engaging data professions/scientists in all stages of design and vice versa will create innumerable value of business.
