Creative Collisions: Applying the Principles of Design to Analytics

Through a hands-on workshop with adidas’ MakerLab, we – the Digital Analytics team at adidas – experienced how disrupting our normal brainstorming routine opened doors to exciting new ways to visualize data, taking from the principles of design.

If you’re like me, you grew up thinking that you were more right- or left-brained and thus more prone to creativity or logical thinking; but the study of the brain has come a long way, poking and prodding most literally into the puzzle of the mind.

We now know that the right and left hemispheres are not separate organs working in isolation, with each only controlling certain capabilities. In fact, creativity and rational thinking are whole-brained activities and the left brain is far from uncreative.

It can be counter-intuitive when you’re in need of a good solution, but sometimes you need to take a break, open up and do something completely different. This then fuels the right inspiration and motivation to solve the problem. Even the great Albert Einstein frequently interrupted his brainstorming sessions on his theories to play a few chords on the piano before jumping back into his thinking with fresh motivation and energy.

We split the workshop participants into two groups, and the challenge for each of these groups was to create a story from randomly chosen data sets in a limited amount of time.

To spice it up and further incentivize the creativity, we set up a “Shark Tank” scenario in which the participants were informed that three wealthy investors (who were actually other MakerLab colleagues) would visit us in the last phase and decide which option they’d like to invest in.

Our team members became hungry for information: Who are these investors? What do they like and dislike? What did they invest in already? While asking these questions in the workshop, we realized that in our day-to-day work we rarely ask these questions about our own stakeholders. Instead we go directly into report creation mode based on our own assumptions.

We realized that when creating a report, presentation or visualization it’s key to understand the audience. Think of yourself as a problem solver, understand what is important to them and use their desires to refine your content.

With PowerPoint banned, we were supplied with a variety of physical materials such as Lego, Play-Doh and other crafty trinkets living in the MakerLab.

Every shape and object we wanted to use for storytelling cost us time. Without the possibility of “copy-pasting” or creating infinite options from the same PowerPoint slide, we realized quickly that we needed to think the story through early on to efficiently create the visualization with the given tools.

A lot of the time, we provide facts and data without any narrative, which makes our content easily forgettable. This exercise gave us an understanding that the story is the most important element. We can then use visuals and design to enhance the story and make it impactful.

Beginning – Set Up
A scenario between the status quo and your audience goal.

Middle – Build
What happened? What is the problem? And finally – the solution?

End – Pay Off
Actions on the decision you are trying to influence.

These workshops brought team members together who would not normally work together. After reviewing our audience and creating the storyline, we were all surprised with each other’s knowledge and ideas, which wasn’t just good for team-building, it also inspired future cross-team collaborations that are still happening to this day.

Integrating a fresh point of view into your report creation process should happen at the very beginning to help you understand your stakeholder and successfully set up the main story/structure of the insights you want to share.

People came into the workshop with the idea that creativity is only for design teams. They walked out energized by design process knowledge, brains fully exercised on both sides of the hemisphere and confident they could provide creative solutions.

Following the success of our workshop with the MakerLab, we’ve hosted further data-storytelling and design-thinking trainings and we continue to foster a culture of curiosity.

If you’re interested in doing something similar, I’d encourage you to consider the following:

• Reflect frequently – question yourself: Is this the best way of doing this, why am I doing this and who am I doing this for?
• Be confident in your ability to create. Creativity is like a muscle! Everybody has it. The more you use it, the better you become at it.
• Seek inspiration. Be open-minded, and don’t shy away from learning from different people and situations unfamiliar to you. We can attest – this is the secret to cooking up those amazing and unexpected creative collaborative collisions!