At the Data-Centric Design Lab, we research how to empower designers and users to work together, with data, towards solutions that address societal challenges. We do so through the iterative development of a software ecosystem: the Data-Centric Design Hub.
Data-Centric Design is about ethical and collaborative design through behavioural data.
3 Principles
The DCD Hub is our research prototype, the digital laboratory where we develop and test our hypotheses; we do not have precise requirements. Instead, we continuously generate and build upon research insights. However, three leading principles align with the Data-Centric Design verbs.
Involve all stakeholders – We take a holistic approach considering designers making use of data, humans generating data and authorities (e.g. governance, legal or ethical entities) keeping oversight of data. These three perspectives are vital in our vision of ethical and collaborative design with data.
Promote transparency – We value the proper understanding and visibility of all stakeholders over their area of concern. Giving the highest importance to ethics and collaboration, we favour design with fewer data from more engaged and informed data subjects.
Promote agency – We value the appropriate control of all stakeholders over their area of concern. Data must be private by default, with adequate means to leverage it.
With these three principles in mind, the DCDHub is naturally open-source. We invite everyone to see and contribute to what is going on through our GitHub repositories. It is an ecosystem of software, opening up for collaborations. We invite everyone to connect applications (Apps) and data sources (Things) that contribute to the three principles.