How Two Designers Put the Personality Back in Data

In their new book, Dear Data, pen pals Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec experiment with “small data” as an exercise in approachability.

Imagine having to count the number of times you laughed, or had a negative thought, or touched another human. And each time, you’d have to take note, be conscious of your actions, and hold yourself accountable for everything you wish you were doing differently. Every week for a year, two information designers — Giorgia Lupi in New York and Stefanie Posavec in London — tracked their behaviors and turned them into hand-drawn data visualizations etched onto postcards and shipped in the mail.

The project was both an exercise in self-awareness and a way of getting to know each other. Twitter friends first, the women had only met in person twice before promising to share the most unflattering bits of themselves through data. Picking from an agreed-upon list of topics, each week they tracked something about themselves — from the types of doors they walked through to the things that made them jealous.

As designers, conversations about how clients can use Big Data to understand users are commonplace for Lupi and Posavec. Dear Data allowed them to step back and explore the bits of small data that they gathered without the help of apps and body trackers. Where big data can seem both cold and hard, unsafe and scientific, Dear Data offered a method for pulling personality from the numbers, getting to know someone not through words but through actual behavior.

The project eventually evolved into a book from Princeton Architectural Press that recaps the project and reveals an intimate look at each postcard, telling the story of a year in the lives of these two women in marker and pencil. We spoke with Lupi and Posavec about the project, the book, and what their data taught them about themselves.

How did this project evolve into a book? Was that always the goal?

Lupi This started because we wanted to challenge ourselves and get to know each other through our data. But we also wanted to advocate for a warmer approach to data. We wanted to show people that you don’t have to be a statistician or a programmer to see data all around you.

The book isn’t only the showcasing of the project; it’s really just the starting point of a conversation between Stefanie and I about our approach and the importance of working with personal data. It’s a 300-page exploration of uncovering the warmth at the core of our lives in data.

The idea of “big data” can make people uncomfortable. How does this project challenge assumptions?

Posavec Big data comes off seeming quite cold and intimidating — it’s not very accessible and it’s very elitist. We’re trying to make data approachable, friendly, and warm. By working on this project by hand, we tried to show people that they can gather their own data and access it. It’s not just something that statisticians and analysts can do.

Lupi As information designers, when we work with big data we’re supposed to make it smaller, more understandable, and really contextual. We experiment with small data to explore how we can bring personality back into data.

What was the hardest part of keeping the project going?

Lupi Data collection can be very intrusive. The hardest for me was the week of tracking our indecisions. It was tough because I was debating whether to go back to Italy to see my ill grandfather. Really having to map and track my indecisions in a week that was so full of internal debates was very difficult.

Posavec There’s a week where we were gathering data on laughter — which is already really challenging — but it came on the week of my birthday. I had my birthday party, and at a certain point, it was intruding on my ability to have a nice time with my friends.

Did tracking your behavior ultimately change it?

Posavec After the week of gathering data about smiling at strangers, which was a very frustrating week for me, I noticed I smile at people in London more than I used to.

Lupi I’ve learned to pay attention, to be more present, and to be more aware of the thoughts in my mind as they pop up.

What was it like once the year-long project was over?

Posavec It was like walking around for a week feeling like you’ve left something behind but you can’t remember what you’ve forgotten. As a self-employed person who can dither for ages, the deadline of getting a postcard done every week really helped me.

Lupi The project helped me talk about data with my clients. What’s behind the data, how we approach the data, and how we collect the data really informs the data itself. It’s very normal for a client to come in and say, “We have big data, let’s find the tools to use.” And so now we take a step back and say, “No, we have to find the right questions and remember that data is just the starting point to understand any kind of phenomenon.”

What’s next?

Posavec We have a spinoff that we want to develop further called Your Dear Data. A lot of people are creating their own postcards and they have pen pals and they’re doing the project themselves. We’d like to showcase those postcards and get people to use the Dear Data process to understand their own data.

Want to get involved in the Your Dear Data project? You can email the authors, subscribe to a mailing group, or find a pen pal on the Dear Data website.

All images courtesy of Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec.