For years, digital marketers and web design agencies developed tools to build aesthetic experiences for customers. And they were successful. The quality of today’s online environments is infinitely higher than it was in the past, and it’s all thanks to the drive to make the digital world more beautiful. 

However, visuals are only part of the story. While they are important, they’re not the whole show. Digital era designers have to move beyond mere artistic motifs and incorporate data into their design choices to maximize business relevance. Pure aesthetics is okay for art galleries, but it just doesn’t cut it in the commercial world. 

Why Care About Data-Driven Design?

Data-driven design is a self-explanatory concept: businesses use the information they collect to concoct digital experiences that encourage their audiences to convert. 

Primarily, that’s why data-driven design is so compelling. Companies that use data in their design decision-making see improvements in metrics across the board. 

But what does it actually mean to be “data-driven?”

According to Designing with Data: Improving the User Experience with A/B Testing by Rochelle King, Elizabeth Churchill, and Caitlin Tan, a company achieves data-driven status (as opposed to “information informed” status) when it uses quantitative data to inform all design decisions. Thus, a genuine data-driven design strategy kills all instinct and subjects all design decisions to scientific inquiry. 

Data-Driven Design Principles

Building a design strategy around data requires adopting a specific set of principles to ensure that you use the available information correctly. 

Here’s what to do: 

Set Up Your Experiment

Before you begin using data, you need to set up a hypothesis – as if you were conducting a scientific experiment. Ideally, you want to create a “testable statement” – something you could potentially refute, were you to find contradictory data. 

Eliminate Confounders

Confounding variables are extraneous features that cloud the purity of your experimental setup. 

Data-Driven Design In Practice

Mabbly used data-driven design in its work with healthcare services provider Symphony Care Network. The company needed a strategic plan to better reach their target audience and be the first brand patients considered when searching for post-acute care. Using quantitative research methods, Mabbly first identified Sympony’s target market and then created a data-driven go-to-market plan which focused on enhancing customer touchpoints throughout their journey.