Experience-led Design: Marrying Data with Creativity

of all um I'm not a designer myself but I have 
you know since a very young age feel like I have

a strong appreciation for great design and 
this was really born out of my sweet tooth

um I really enjoy the great designs of those Pez 
candy machines yes right you can hold it the the

candies don't melt you have a great interesting 
heads of characters and the other thing that was

a great design I really appreciate app so much 
so that I ate a lot of them were those kinder

eggs right you open them up the little toys you 
build them so I like to think at very early age

I was a great appreciator of design the second 
um sort of confession a little more complicated

is my relationship with creativity and data so I 
really enjoyed art um when I first started life um

in fact fact I was born I was born um far far away 
but I spent my childhood actually close to here uh

Miss Saga how many people know Miss Saga okay and 
um my parents will still tell you the story about

how one time I was trying to um make a block of P 
plaster of Paras and I had filled plaster of Paras

in a sink in a box which I taped up to get the 
block so I could carve into it there was a little

hole in it you know what all happened right it all 
dripped out into the sink into the plumbing let's

just say it didn't end well um my relationship 
with data actually began in fourth grade when

I got my first computer and this is where I maybe 
starting to you know age myself here but I got my

fourth uh my computer in fourth grade it was a 
Tandy computer and I play with logo which was a

little how many people remember logo or okay which 
was a little you know triangle that you typed in

instructions it was supposed to be a turtle or 
something like that and you would be able to kind

of find the different directions so um since then 
I've actually spent the last 16 years at Adobe and

I joined Adobe because I came out of college as a 
engineer and I looked around I still had this real

love for art and when I saw adobe's illustrator 
box and on it at the time was uh image of Venus

de Milo and I said this is my type of technology 
company I fell in love and I've been there ever

since so today I want to talk about three areas 
um around data and creativity and the marrying

these for experience design um I've spent the 
last 16 years thinking about how technology

can influence digital experiences and I think 
it's a very exciting time talking to all of you

designers because it's important I think to marry 
the creativity with that data so the three things

um changing Demand on experiences um understanding 
your audience through data which I think is a real

opportunity for design in the digital world and 
then adapting those experiences and some of the

Technologies and techniques there but before 
I begin that I want to talk about um sort of

because sometimes when I think we talk about 
computers and we talk about machines and um it's

it's um challenging because we always think 
they're somehow different and I want I want to

say the problem or the challenge around marrying 
data and creativity is one that humans do very

naturally so some of the things that we want 
machines to do and digital experiences that we

want to express through digital experiences is 
very much challenges that we take for granted

because as a human we've Sol them we are both 
creators and collectors um creators of great

um art great design and collectors of data and 
what I mean by this is each one of you you're

sitting there I want you to close your eyes for 
a moment okay and think about what you're feeling

right now think about all the senses across all 
your skin even when you had your eyes open all

of the pieces of data that you were taking in 
to consideration and and even this conference

and what you're hearing about are inputs of data 
information that's influencing what you're going

to create next what is going to inspire you 
into the next U great design that you're going

to have and so this is something we as humans 
we do effortlessly and something as we build

out digital experiences is actually something 
very challenging how do we make websites be

great listeners and great conversationalists 
how do we actually do this and this is where

this idea of maring creativity and data something 
so natural to us as humans is something that is a

challenge in the digital world that we're trying 
to address for Brands and for technologists so I

want you to open your eyes because I don't 
think I'm as interesting listening to just

my audio maybe but these slides help so um and an 
example of that was Goan right and this is where

it's sort of interesting this creativity um I love 
impressionist art but many of you who've studied

art will know that when impressionism first came 
out um it was controversial because before that

it was realistic paintings and what is you know 
what are people doing like Monae ranoa painting

this stuff that doesn't look like it does in real 
life and Goan was very influenced by them and this

was a painting sacred Springs sweet dreams that he 
painted after his visit to Tahiti and what it was

was really the creativity that um was Unleashed as 
a result of going somewhere new of getting all of

these visual exotic insights and sights and sounds 
and his impression of it and how he interpreted

it and so this idea of data and creativity is 
not foreign to humans digital though what does

digital do so digital changes the dimensions 
of um the the space that you can create in and

so um some of the things that digit does like for 
example in the retail industry and designing that

shopping experience uh the traditional retail 
experience you know you walk into a shop you

talk to someone you have a conversation they may 
recommend an outfit they may recommend a pair of

shoes they may by listening to data about you in 
the digital world you might visit a site and um

there could be infinite number of possibilities of 
what are products and what are things that are on

a retail so this idea of being able to marry this 
idea that digital gives you infinite possibilities

um recommendations of what's out there where in 
a store it's all physically limited by the size

of the store poses both an opportunity and also 
a challenge how do you surface the things that

matter to the particular person that's coming 
through your digital experience even in AR so

there's a company companies that I've been talking 
to around augmented reality is how do you design

those experiences that combine with the physical 
so if you go into a Sephora shop um for makeup how

do you design The Experience so that you're able 
to get additional information through digital um

screens and things like that that you wouldn't get 
from the physical makeup the second is around the

automotive industry and where design is playing 
role there so there's a lot of design in the

around the car and um at Mobile World Congress 
the CEO Mark Fields of Ford noted that the

average person spends about 4.5 hours in a 
dealership but spends over 900 hours in the

first year experiencing the inside of a car and 
as cars become connected digitally as there are

more screens inside of a car there's a real 
reimagination of what that experience can be

and how do you design a car the physical the 
screens the content that's in place so what are

the things that you need to think about there 
and what kind of pieces of data can help with

that creativity and this idea that um you know 
experiences are changing as a result of digital

will continue and it'll accelerate and here 
are some of the ways um the changing demands

on these experiences I know Paulo spoke yesterday 
and what I thought was interesting was um and she

talks about this exhibit that um happened at New 
Y New York Moma and it was around video games and

uh it was 2012 and you know she put out this this 
exhibit around video games and there was um first

escaping review by the guardian which basically 
said sorry Moma um video games aren't art and

their whole point in that article was that because 
video games are interactive because someone plays

it and does something with the video game it's 
not a singular vision of just one person and it

changes as a result it wasn't considered art since 
then of course there were a lot of other um folks

that stepped up and said it absolutely is Art and 
so I think that digital is pushing the boundaries

of what kind of experiences we need to create and 
what kind of design we need to create um one way

that that's happening is with the behavior of um 
individuals um so gen Z which is the generation

after Millennials will have more devices than 
even we have today today on average is about

2.3 devices that we each of us uh carries around 
um gen Z will have five devices so from a design

perspective it's not just thinking about WEA 
and I saw a tweet yesterday about how vetica um

whether um you know certain fonts will look good 
on certain screens but how will everything lay

out if there's different sizes of screens if you 
have a screen within a car how will all of these

different um experiences need to change and morph 
and how do you create and design these experiences

that will scale the other aspect is attention 
span so the one sty I want to call out is that

the um average attention span is nine seconds of 
a goldfish is now 8.5 as of 2015 so it's shortened

much that more since then for a person so we 
now have on average shorter attention spans than

goldfish okay what does this mean around 
design and being able to surface that thing

that um content that image that that 
will evoke emotion that will engage

in 8.5 seconds and what's interesting about this 
is not that um gen Z won't pay attention so they

are also the generation that will spend a lot 
of time on online courses and things like that

but what's happened is because they're growing up 
in a world infused with digital content they have

really sophisticated filters meaning they're 
getting very quick at telling right off the

bat whether something's of interest to them or 
not so in 8.5 seconds they've clearly determined

is this something that an experience a design 
or something that I want to engage with and

if not I'm moving on and this is where I think 
there's an opportunity for data as well because

it's about can you understand who it is that's in 
front of you fast enough and be able to deliver a

relevant experience they're also into co-creation 
so just as much as that Pac-Man game right was a

design that invited engagement that invite someone 
to come there you know take out the game console

and start playing with it this idea of being able 
to co-create being able to have um a dialogue is

even more important to this generation if you 
think about this this is something where um I

recently actually co-presented with someone 
from Coca-Cola if you think about Coca-Cola

with the you know the red the White Wave It's 
iconic image right and they have a lot of other

brands that have specific brand and 20 years ago 
it might have been like here is the design we're

not changing it this is um the design that we're 
going with um this is the experience that we're

pushing out and even um Coca-Cola they what 
they've been doing is one they've started to

add different names and different song tunes and 
things like that to really sort of engage with

their audience the other aspect is they've been 
pulling in more user generated content so they've

been actually going and you know um streaming 
from Twitter and from Facebook and Pinterest

um things that consumers of Coca-Cola uh are 
producing and actually using it in conjunction

with their branded design to actually create 
much more engaging experiences and Studies have

shown the combination of user generate content and 
brand content can lead up to a 28% um increase in

engagement so there's a shift on what ex people 
expect from Brands and the designs and the content

that'll engage them and it really is a shift to 
sort of the experience era um you think about

uh the one that we've been coming out of which 
is I would say the Industrial Revolution right

so a lot of things you think about um in terms of 
centralized produce production things are produced

in one place to now a decentralized production so 
you think about um you know a a hotel brand where

things are centralized and you have all of these 
buildings and these experience es and how things

are designed to how do you enforce that quality 
of a you know Airbnb how do you start to create

a brand that allows for other um other people 
to to add to it the second is around quality so

quality standards are enforced by Community as 
opposed to you know the brand was in the past

an enforced Community if you went to a McDonald's 
you knew exactly what you were going to get if you

bought a car from a certain brand you knew exactly 
what you're going to get the quality standards are

now being enforced by the community so one of the 
aspects is with Uber you can rate right and this

part of feedback or Yelp being able to rate and 
being able to have the community validate that um

design we have a um also a community of creatives 
and designers behance some of you may be members

of that adobe behance and there you can also 
have people that are curating that are surfacing

interesting designs or artists and being able to 
do that and the final is productivity being able

to move from Mass Goods to designing for Mass 
personalization and this is um the example I

brought up with a car is an example of that or 
or Tesla if you think about it before you had

to design something and it had to be the same for 
everyone you designed where the knobs were going

you designed where all of the different aspects 
are going whereas now with um Mass personalization

and digital screens you're able to get to a really 
interesting personalized experience and so um you

know if you think about Pac-Man and that being 
designed um I had this debate actually with my

husband because I gave this example I was talking 
to him about my talking he was like uber that's

not creative what are you talking about that's 
creative and I said well if you think about

product design and you think about experience Uber 
couldn't exist without data right so if you think

about um how that experience is when you um you 
know turn on the mobile app from anywhere it knows

where your location is it then surfaces exactly 
what kinds of cars are in your location you can

see it on a map right you can then choose and 
say I want to get picked up then the experience

of waiting and knowing exactly where the car is 
which street it's on being able to pay for it

without actually having to go through the awkward 
thing of pulling out your wallet and all of those

things those are all parts of a creative approach 
to an age- old problem someone asked the question

is there a way of using technology data digital 
to design a very unique experience for hailing

a taxi someone saw you know people hailing taxis 
and is there a different way of doing this this is

the same thing that happened with nests you know 
most of us pass by before Nest are thermostat and

never thought of you know it was the most boring 
probably you know device in our home and then

someone came along and said can we do something 
else can we design it differently and you think

about Nest there is creativity in that design it's 
absolutely gorgeous I I installed one finally and

it's it's fabulous but there's also the experience 
of the information it's pulling it's learning it's

taking data from you and it's learning about your 
preferences it's learning about what temperatures

to set it and so this is where I think there's 
an opportunity to think about data as input into

that creative process and so I want to go to 
what are the different ways of understanding

your audience because that is a key part that is 
changing the way designs are happening so just as

Pacman was about being able to design a game and 
being able to allow for people to um do certain

actions and there were certain rules the same can 
be said about um understanding audiences for other

types of product design in the real world it's 
pretty easy um who knows what this is stiletto

right stilettos for got invented because of the 
technology of plastic um to be able to create

um such a such a Marvel actually um it's very 
uncomfortable for people who have war stilos

will know um it's very uncomfortable to to wear 
but um that is a Marvel of engineering okay that

piece of plastic um it was calculated that you 
could have about two tons of weight on that right

and um I thought this was a folklore when I heard 
it because I heard in a physics class around how

the first airplanes that got designed uh there 
was an issue because it was uh the flooring of

it could not withstand a woman um coming onto 
airplane with Stilettos and it would damage the

carpet it could put a hole in the floor and I had 
heard this from physics and I thought okay is this

like for real or is this an exercise that was done 
and then I found this article from New Scientist

uh Magazine from that era and it was actually 
advertising designed for airplane flooring that

could withstand stilettos all right in the real 
world you understand your audience because you

see them coming on the plane you see that they're 
wearing stilettos you see that um they you know

you need to design and you need to adapt a product 
in order to fulfill this in the digital world how

do you know when you have all of these different 
screens how do you know because you're not there

in the room with them and so this is where there's 
techn how do you know that this you know who's

visiting whether they're sales-driven consumer 
they're recipe Hunter they utilitarian working

father there are all these different people 
that are visiting um and experience now this

is a weite but it could be different devices as 
well Coca-Cola has a freestyle machine right where

you can go and can mix your soft drinks and they 
tie it together with a mobile app so that you can

actually save your different combinations of your 
drink so how do you do this Mass personalization

of design experience how do you design in a way 
that looks great but still it quickly adapts to

that person that's hitting your website um inside 
of a car doing different things uh with 8. seconds

of attention span so how do you detect the digital 
holes right it's easy to see the holes in the

airplane floor but how do you detect the digital 
holes so data can help to under um help understand

audience segments so some of the Technologies 
out there is helping us be better listeners

as designers in the digital world here what you 
can see is that um that site you can hook it up

to different analytics to be able to detect what 
things are working where are people leaving where

are people you know not engaging how do you then 
go back and be able to rethink that part of that

design of that experience being Al also being able 
to understand how they're moving through a journey

right so just as in game design being able to look 
at what are the different experiences similarly

with any design of an experience where someone's 
co-creating someone's also um experiencing it with

you how do you have a visual of when they go to 
the website when they go to a mobile app when they

come into a store and they're informed by all of 
these different um combination of decisions it's

not just the product that's being put out that's 
designed or that um you know a chair that's being

put how do you adapt how do you adapt that 
experience and so this is another example

of being able to look through different Journeys 
and there's a lot of data so the other aspect is

around um Ai and machine learning and being able 
to look for anomalies so if you get a certain

amount of data there's also ways and Technologies 
of understanding um and predicting what may happen

as a result of what's happened before now you 
may just like getting to know people um in

the real world um is a progressive audience so 
there's a lot of different aspects that you may

be wanting to collect or think about as a designer 
so these are things where you know no one is going

to see all of this at once it's going to be a 
progressive thing but the more that you understand

your audience the better so some of the simple 
things are things like age interests cities but

there's also environmental um variables there's 
um where are they coming from so understanding

basically their history their context and being 
able to also get to other possibility of second

and third hand um data from uh backend customer 
relationship Management Systems from uh phone

calls that they may have had so there's a lot 
of things that are available in data that helps

designers understand their audience better in the 
digital world and it's not just the digital world

because it can cross over to inore experiences 
as well and this is really important because um

I talk to Banks I talk to um uh stores I talk 
to all of these different um even people who

answer call centers and they're trying to figure 
out how to design that better digital experience

that customer experience and what they say is 
that um the customer that's coming in is very

different than they used to be so someone coming 
in into a dealership to buy a car it's a very

different audience because they may have already 
browsed the website so they've already checked

out different things they configured for example 
a car um they've also maybe looked at their mobile

app and seen where the Lo nearest dealership is 
so when they come in there's already this context

that um they will have and the questions they 
ask and the things that they're considering are

very different so how do you quickly adapt that 
experience with the data and be able to connect

those experiences across the board and even in 
person so here it's um showing two things of an

inore experience uh of shopping so one on the left 
is being able to have um an augmented view into a

particular um product and this is something that 
someone could a sales associate for example could

have to be able to work with and um recommend 
different products and different experiences to

the um person that they're talking to and the 
right is being able to actually look through

different designs so as I mentioned before um with 
infinite you know possibilities in the digital

world you may not be able to fit everything into 
the store so being able to have maybe certain um

you know samples in the store but then being able 
to look at the infinite possibilities as well um

and so data um so the challenge if you think about 
this um in designing experience for this is how do

you get to uh relevant content so this is a really 
important piece um which is that as you start to

get this data and you want to start to personalize 
that experience as a designer how do you get

the right content how do you get the amount of 
content that you need in order to deliver those

personalized digital experiences so the first um 
area is around um being able to use data machine

learning to surface designs and things that are 
already there I I saw a tweet from from yesterday

about how Pinterest is a great tool because you're 
able to collect different ideas and things and

have a sort of board um similar here uh being able 
to if you have a lot of images but you can't find

them because they're not tagged properly they're 
not linked um to be able to use things like um

you know smart tags which is something that um 
leverages machine learning to be able to look at

um to have machines look at images and be able to 
parse out what's actually on that um in that image

helps you to surface those um that content that 
you need and then being able to think about what

is that interaction so similar to a a game think 
about what are the different Pathways that could

happen and being able to design the content 
so it's not just static but that it's Dynamic

so if I go and I go to a landing page and I see 
something there in the eight .5 seconds that's of

interest and I click on a video um that's another 
piece of information that I know that that person

potentially is interested in a particular type of 
Cuisine to be able to then um knowing that figure

out what are other possibilities of recipes in 
this case that they would be interested in and

being able to surface that um and and put together 
collection of content that would best appeal to

that audience and being able to take it all the 
way to loyalty which is being able to get them to

download an app or being able to um you know and 
from there getting other information about where

they're located and being able to deliver other 
great um pieces of content so these are things

that are possibilities um that help in terms 
of creativity and being able to design better

experiences by knowing your Audience by being 
able to get access to the content that's needed

and then being able to quickly Target and um 
be able to provide those experiences and so

data isn't limiting in the sense that um based 
on those experiences um creativity I think is

found in the questions we ask not the answers we 
have and I think data provides other answers it

provides answers around who the audience is it 
provides answers around what are they responding

to and where are they not it provides answers 
to um what kind of content do I already have

and what kind of content do I need where are the 
gaps in my customer Journey where are the parts

of my design where the experience is failing 
so it gives you views into that to ask other

questions and I think it's why Albert Einstein 
said imagination is more important than knowledge

knowledge is limited to the information data 
whereas imagination um opens up so many different

possibilities I saw a very inspirating um 
documentary recently it was called my love

affair with the brain and it was about 
um uh the first female neuroscientist Dr

Marian diamond and she spent her whole career 
studying the brain and what was fascinating

for her was that something that size in 
all of us is where ideas are generated

it all happens there all of the ways that 
we sense information the data that we get

the human brain and what we do with it happens 
all inside of the brain and when asked about why

she was so successful as a neuroscientist um she 
the point that was given was it was the questions

she asked so she was one of the first people 
that studied Einstein's brain she asked what

was it about Einstein's brain that made him able 
to be so brilliant um come with so many ideas um

how what was it and they had preserved Einstein's 
brain and she asked for a slice of Einstein's

brain and she studied it she used data she she 
had a question around what was it she studied

Einstein's brain compared to other people's brains 
right she she had different samples and it was

there that she had breakthroughs around different 
parts of the brain that in the past were thought

were useless were just oh the you know it's really 
just the neurons it's nothing around it it's the

neurons were the star of why some people had 
um were smarter than others and and were more

creative and turned out it was all of this other 
stuff around the brain that assisted in that and

Einstein had so much more of those and and that 
led to a discovery that was published the other

part of it though was she she was also at the 
Forefront of another discovery about the brain

before her research the common belief was that 
when you were born your brain was a certain size

it grew to a certain point in your life and then 
your brain was fixed from there you would just

decline you would you know your brain was fixed it 
would just decline until your you know Natural end

and so the belief was that humans were limited at 
some point Point by their brain capacity and what

she did in her study um through studying mice 
and other um you know subjects what she found

was that the brain actually through stimulation 
actually grew so the more creative you are the

more stimulation you got the more data you 
got the more things you saw the more things

you experienc it actually your brain continued 
to grow and this was a complete breakthrough so

I thought the documentary my love affair with the 
brain was very inspiring I recommend you guys all

you know check it out I found it to be fascinating 
but the the takeaway and I hope the takeaway from

this presentation is that data fuels creativity 
that the more data you have in digital offers a

enormous opportunity to get more of that data 
um fuels the creativity and it is the brain to

continue to grow it so that you can create ever 
more and amazing and interesting things thank you