Rosenverse

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

The Feeling of Data
Thursday, September 14, 2023 • Enterprise Community
Share the love for this talk
The Feeling of Data
Speakers: David Conrad
Link:

Summary

The age of data is well underway. But using data to make better decisions is not as simple as one might hope. In this session, we'll take a look at some of the challenges that arise when we fail to build better data culture and what we can do as designers to fix it.

Key Insights

  • Good data culture requires intentional decisions about what data is collected and why.

  • Democratizing data access speeds up decision-making and reveals cultural issues when too difficult.

  • Human curation remains essential for data quality as AI can’t yet fully replace manual intervention.

  • Data storytelling shapes organizational culture and helps unify diverse interpretations of the same data.

  • Designers play a critical role beyond aesthetics by mediating between teams and aligning data practices.

  • AI’s current lack of context understanding leads to overconfidence and risk of missing nuance.

  • Transparency via data lineage tools is crucial to avoid black-box models and build trust in AI.

  • There is often tension between 'hard' quantitative data and 'soft' experiential insights in decision-making.

  • A mature data culture integrates data quality metrics with organizational norms and responsibilities.

  • Information architecture and shared terminology are vital to reduce confusion and promote healthy data culture.

Notable Quotes

"Data problems often end up being people problems because we're lazy, shortsighted, territorial creatures."

"We as people are our data, which means we have to treat data problems with care and consideration."

"Good data culture is intentional about the decisions we want to make and why."

"If people have to file requests and learn SQL just to get simple data, you have a culture problem."

"Data quality is multifaceted, subjective, and can't be reduced to simple profiles alone."

"AI isn't good at context yet; it may insist it's a B or a 13, but not that it could be both depending on view."

"No black boxes: AI needs to explain its answers just like people do to build accountability and trust."

"Most people will make the right decisions with data if they know the appropriate guidelines."

"Designers should act like therapists or journalists when negotiating political divides around data governance."

"The Power BI team succeeds with data because everyone on the team is obsessed with understanding customer behavior."

Ask the Rosenbot
Kim Lenox
Leading Distributed Global Teams
2019 • Enterprise Community
Emily Lessard
RFPs Without Tears: Writing Inclusive RFPS that Don't Scare Away Talent
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Briana Thomas
When Design Ops Comes in H.O.T. : A Tale of a Transformed Design Org
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Robert Fabricant
Shifting dynamics: The evolving relationship between researchers, participants, and organizational systems
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Samuel Proulx
Invisible barriers: Why accessible service design can’t be an afterthought
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold
Sean Dolan
A Practical Look at Creating More Usable Enterprise Customer Journeys
2019 • Enterprise Community
Liz Ebengo
The Burden on Children: The Cost of Insufficient Post-Conflict Services and Pathways Forward
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold
Tracy McGoldrick
IBM User Experience Program—The What, Why and How
2021 • Advancing Research Community
Davis Neable
How to Drive a Design Project When you Don’t Have a Design Team
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Pippa Lomas
Paving the Path for Neurodiversity in Design
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Mansi Gupta
Drawing from Feminist Practice to Make Inclusive Design Operational
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Luca Rager
Empowering Gaming at Scale: How Xbox Builds Powerful, Automated, and Distributed Design Systems with Sketch
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Molly Fargotstein
Multipurpose Communication & UX Research Marketing
2019 • DesignOps Community
Sharbani Dhar
Breathing Room for Delight
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Sam Proulx
Mobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Kathleen Asjes
Research Democratization: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold

More Videos

Sam Proulx

"No assistive technology user uses default settings; we spend years customizing everything to work for us."

Sam Proulx

SUS: A System Unusable for Twenty Percent of the Population

December 9, 2021

Michael Land

"Hiring specs for federal designers don’t exist as we expect—jobs are often classified as public affairs or other unrelated titles."

Michael Land

Establishing Design Operations in Government

February 18, 2021

Shipra Kayan

"VOC wasn’t a replacement for user research, but an enhancer that captured nuggets researchers might miss during discovery."

Shipra Kayan

How we Built a VoC (Voice of the Customer) Practice at Upwork from the Ground Up

September 30, 2021

Ian Swinson

"Why don’t we do what we do for users but apply it to our own careers? Absolutely nutty, right? So we did."

Ian Swinson

Designing and Driving UX Careers

June 8, 2016

Isaac Heyveld

"The chief of staff is the bridge between our executive leadership team and the design ops practitioners."

Isaac Heyveld

Expand DesignOps Leadership as a Chief of Staff

September 8, 2022

Amy Evans

"Async communications helped us reduce emails and meetings, improving overall efficiency."

Amy Evans

How to Create Change

September 25, 2024

Kate Koch

"You should take risks, and if you fail, you need to fail fast and pivot immediately."

Kate Koch Prateek Kalli

Flex Your Super Powers: When a Design Ops Team Scales to Power CX

September 30, 2021

Dave Gray

"Most enterprises are not emotionally safe places; people can’t just leave emotions at the door."

Dave Gray

Liminal Thinking: Sense-making for systems in large organizations

May 14, 2015

Matt Duignan

"Product teams want quick, grab-and-go research results, but reusable insights are more abstract and take longer to digest."

Matt Duignan

Atomizing Research: Trend or Trap

March 30, 2020