Design + Data + Behavior

Communication methods to accelerate synthesis and give tangible form to valuable information

Faculty Lead:
Ruth Schmidt

Teaching Assistant:
Julia Rochlin

Class:
Communication in the Planning Process

Project Team:
Ellesia Albert
Xuanyu Chen
Ananya Garg
Audrey Gordon
Grace Hanford
Kie Ichikawa
Divya Iyengar
Alvin Jin
Pinakee Naik
Jessica Nelson
Adithya Ravi
Jason Romano
Jiani Sapathy
McKinley Sherrod
J. Smyk
Justin Walker
Wanshan Wu
Yifei/Evie Yu
Shiya Xiao

It’s a cliché, but nonetheless true: The best ideas are worthless unless they are communicated well. This need to communicate compelling information effectively maybe even more important when it comes to a field like design, in which designers are often in the position of having to explain the value of abstract ideas that don't yet exist, simultaneously informing, persuading, and inspiring audiences to risk doing something new.

Leveraging panel discussion content from ID’s 2018 Design Intersections: Design + Data + Behavior conference, the class started by exploring critically important questions at the intersection of design strategy, data science and algorithms, and behavioral design:  How might we resolve the increasing tension between our mental models of technology and what is happening under the hood? How can we trust systems and algorithms that are themselves biased? What does it take to work at the intersection of design, data, and behavior? And what does the future hold for these swiftly evolving fields?

In seven short weeks, students moved through the entire arc of design strategy — from raw, unsorted data to final presentation — to conceive of and execute on an effective communication artifact and plan. Along the way, the work built week by week to weave in notions of evidence, rhetorical devices, how to develop a singular point of view, and “retinal variables” to address how our brains and eyes perceived visual content. Through iterative development and weekly group critiques, students built muscles that can be applied to any format and context for design communication.