By: Dr. Marty Trevino

Despite the advanced multidimensional data visualization and the meticulous development of design methodologies, data-driven decision-making in the most critical areas remains an unrealized goal. The false gods of Data Science and Design, coupled with a general ignorance on the part of corporate leaders of how the brain utilizes and trusts data and technology, is at the heart of this failure. A near purist focus on the data, the models, the algorithms, and visual design methods contributed significantly to this failure. 

Both Data Science and UX/UI Design professions lack a deep understanding of how the brain makes decisions, constructs, and accesses memories created from visualization, and critically, how it builds, utilizes, and updates its world models (Reference Frames). Understanding and integrating this understanding of the brain's higher-order thinking into our technology and system building is not just a ‘piece of the puzzle’ but the key to unlocking the potential of data-informed decision-making across the continuum. This understanding is not just important - it is crucial for the future of technology design.

The failure of organizations to engrave “data-driven decision-making in the DNA” of the firm, coupled with the necessity for innovation and problem-solving, underscores the urgent need for advancing human/technology complementarity. The key to re-imagining complementarity in a cyber-physical, data-rich world is to leapfrog current technologies by reimagining the interface sensory experience through a cognitive, psychological, and neuroscientific-based design approach. This novel approach should address as many of the known aspects of the brain's sensory perception, memorability, model construction, and decision-making processes at the neuroscientific, cognitive, and psychological levels as possible. We will not reach the endless potential of human/technology complementarity to solve problems, improve performance, and innovate by continuing to worship false gods. The key to the future is re-imaging the sensory experience and integrating hard science into the next generation of human/technology complementarity.

The ”Abstractism” of UI’s

Today's data-embodied User Interfaces (UI), often referred to as dashboards, represent the pinnacle of “abstractism” to the human brain in its learning, reference frame creation and correction (understanding), knowledge and decision-making processes. The latest treatment of UIs, while having a greater selection of visualizations, remains fundamentally abstract, two-dimensional, and fragmented in their information display. UIs presentation of data and information stands in stark contrast to the brain's natural way of learning and exploring the world, and a dissertation is not required to prove this statement. One only needs to recall how often accurate, precise, and timely data has been disregarded by a decision-maker, to the dismay of witnesses. Date-embodied UIs are “sound bites” attempting to represent a world rich in context and time. As an outcome of their design, dashboards encourage specific thinking. We can equate this thinking to the hemispheres of the brain and the often-witnessed decision errors associated with the brain's hemispheric and system functioning.

The fundamental issue with informing the brain’s decision-making processes, intuition, knowledge, and learning through today's Business Intelligence and visual analytics is the lack of complementarity between the UI design and the brain's intractable functioning. UX/UI is not predicated on a deep scientific understanding of how the brain learns, interrogates data, creates and auto-corrects reference frames, the memorability of objects, etc.

Learning Through Movement

The human brain's most natural learning method is through movement and dynamic interaction with objects and the environment. Research has shown that movement does not need to be physical, making our creation of UIs immensely powerful. Semantic dimensions such as time, geolocation, objects, edges, etc., are all accurately interpreted and utilized in creating reference frames (mental models) in both physical and virtual worlds.