Five Tips For Designing Compelling Data-Driven Experiences

We now live in a smart world that is increasingly driven by big data. So it’s no surprise that data-driven apps are starting to make an impact in the marketplace.

Some data-driven applications are personalized portals while others accompany devices like wearables. But not all data-driven apps are created equal as there is an enormous difference between collecting data and actually deriving valuable information from it.

Designing compelling data-driven experiences can be extremely difficult and this is especially true for customer-facing apps that have a large number of data sets and users. As a result, a set of design principles are needed to help developers understand the impact apps have on the customer journey to inform, connect, and motivate the end user.

So how do you go about this? Here're 5 tips to consider!

1. Learn How Data Can Impact Your Customer Journey

If you’re setting off to build a data-driven application, you have to first figure out what information the target customers need. By doing this you can ascertain what data will add value to the app. Remember: the most effective and high-converting applications serve the user needs first!

For example, if it’s a fitness related app, you will need to include advice about the best exercise for different body types and nutritional information. At the end of the day, the customer just wants access to information that they are looking for and they want access to it immediately.

For more information about this check out our partner's webinar about How to identify and track customers across platforms with a universal ID.

2. The “Last Mile” of Big Data is Vital

Focusing on the “last mile” is all about understanding how to derive real value from a vast ocean of data. Once the data is brought down to a micro level, it can provide useful information that can help the end user.

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According to OpenText, there are four types of intelligent apps:

• Best Action
• Market Insight
• Monitoring
• Targeting

So when you’re building the app, you have to keep the last mile in mind. You can do this by considering using data to encourage smarter decisions and more responsive campaigns while applying best practices to keep apps smart, social, simple, and responsive.

Further, it’s also important to define the immediacy of data access and consumption needs. It’s also important to ensure that the apps are able to pull valuable data from multiple sources.

Check out 7 Steps of how embedded analytics bridges the Last Mile to business value.

3. Make Sure Your App Is Scalable

If you’re working with data, you have to make sure that information can be accessed from multiple formats like the following:

• Cloud
• Document archives
• Hadoop
• NoSQL/NewSQL
• Social media
• RDBMS

But while you’re focusing on this, you shouldn’t forget that apps must be highly user-friendly, secure, and should be able to easily integrate with existing branding and appearance.

4. Pay Attention to the Crowd

For many enterprises, the open source community has been an excellent resource. By engaging with them, you can gain some great feedback about how you can improve your data-driven app.

So it can be a great idea for companies and developers to build a community around the app to ensure that it’s improved continuously.

5. Embrace Agility

Being focused and agile will be key to building a successful app. So while you can start small, think big!

Here are some tips to build a highly focused agile data-driven app:

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• Embrace simplicity (all apps need to be straightforward and user-friendly)
• Make sure your app can handle role-specific functions
• Be responsive and deliver value on multiple platforms
• Make it secure and social to connect data and users to the larger world

Although we are talking about data-driven apps here, the same ethos apply to mobile optimized forms and general business apps. It makes sense as business users also want quick access to easy-to-understand insights that they can immediately utilize in their operations.

What else would you add to this list? Please share your thoughts in the Comments section below.