Guideline to Designing Amazing Data Products...

or baking a cake. Honestly, it can be both.

Jul 19, 2023

We often do not have the right conversations about how to reach an audience. We get so caught talking about which charts work best, which metrics go on the x-axis and the y-axis, or which colors and fonts to use—skipping more fundamental discussions about how audiences will access and interact with those charts in the first place.

You see, there is an entire world to be explored in terms of how data can be shown, experienced, felt, understood, sensed, and just enjoyed. All of those decisions depend on the user. The final user changes everything. If you forget this, you may be murdering a unicorn, and please, no one wants that.

So, how can we ensure we meet the audience where they are?

The key is to consider not just the data visualization but the entire data product.

These may seem synonymous, but data products are much more holistic than data visualizations: they encompass every decision from the analytical solutions, to the format, to the media that will host it. Let’s break down each piece and see what happens when we forget our audience.

But first, a story.

The 5-year-old party challenge

Your mother challenged you: your sister is turning five, and you are responsible for feeding them at their party.

You decided to get to know your user to define what to cook. Through a series of interviews, you discover your sister loves unicorns and is a sweet tooth. So you go with a dessert, and the theme will be unicorns.

But your user doesn’t come alone, oh no. She usually comes with a community: her classmates, friends, and their parents. This means your dessert needs to be big enough to feed all of them.

To make that dessert, you will need ingredients. Let's say you have eggs, milk, flour, and sugar. These ingredients determine what you can do, but more specifically, what you can't. You can make a rocambole, a pancake, some fried eggs, or a cake with these ingredients. You decide on a cake.

Your recipe determines what skills and tools you will need to deliver your dessert. You can do something simple or complex. Being a skilled cook and having the time, you will fill it with brigadeiro*. Since you've decided to make a complex recipe, you will need more ingredients, so add them to your ingredient list.

Finally, you can serve your cake on a simple platter or put it in the center of the table on a beautifully crafted bakery platter. Because let's be honest, if you left it in the kitchen, no one could see it.

Being the intentional cook you are, your cake is a success; everyone loves it, leaving no slice for you.

I could be talking about a cake, but I'm talking about baking designig a data product.

An infographic designed and illustrations by our own Bruno Lorenz

Your challenge gives you a direction and a deadline, but your user defines your decision-making. If our user didn't like sweets, we would not have chosen a dessert for her birthday.

Imagine if we had forgotten to consider the community, delivered a small cake, and some kids were left out? I didn't want to be at that party. The community determines the need for your product to scale.

Your ingredients represent your data. Depending on the data you have, your recipe can be more or less complex. Your recipe is your analytical solution. It can be a database, an index, a data visualization, an algorithm, or an AI system. You decided on a cake but could have decided on a fried egg. You cannot deliver an algorithm if you don't have the data or skills, and sometimes you need something simpler, like a database.

The shape of the food is your format and makes it more or less appealing to your user and community. If you choose a simple cake, it may not be as eaten as a colorful one, especially with kids. But it wouldn't have made such a big difference for a different audience. A format can be a dashboard, an infographic, a video, or a PowerPoint slide. Choosing a format depends on many factors, such as time, resources, and technology.

Finally, your media is where your user will have access to it. No one will consume it if you don't put it in front of them and give them the proper tools - like small plates, forks, or spoons. Imagine if you had left it in the kitchen.

If you design a dashboard people can't find, your media is not working, and your efforts will be wasted.

Honestly, I’ve seen more data products that are not consumed than the ones that are eaten to bits.

Amazing human being who has held on this far, I leave you with these insights not to create rules but to help you think about the strategy next time you plan your data visualization. You will get projects without room for discussion, where the client has already chosen a specific format, and you must adapt to these constraints. But other times, I encourage you to push boundaries and leave your comfort zone.

The value of data goes way beyond the technology and the tools you have right now.