The scale of the design challenge in creating a new personal data ecosystem started to emerge at a first Mydex-Design Council workshop in London earlier this month. Designers, officials, and experts from business and NGOs met at the UK Design Council in central London and rolled up their sleeves to map out the nature and scale of the design challenges involved.
It’s a vast challenge, on the scale of providing the largest national infrastructure. It has to offer both immediate and sustained appeal for all parties: individuals, organisations with customers, new emerging services, and the attribute verifiers who bring trust into the equation.
Tom Holmes and Jonathan Sowler (foreground), Mat Hunter and Georgina Nelson (background) help map out the design challenge
But the rewards in getting this right, in healing the tortured processes of present-day logistics of personal data online are immense: cost savings, new business, and saving immense amounts of time and hassle for the individual.
The workshop was the first concrete step in a new collaboration between Mydex and the UK Design Council, which fosters the role of good design in British economic social and political life. As we together digest the copious outputs of this work what we can see emerging is a design challenge on a global scale.
