Know your data before you draw
A canteen wants a better process for counting lunches and hearing complaints. Some data is easy to count. Some is people's opinions. Some sits in the school office, some in an online service.
A good design starts by knowing what data exists and where it lives.
Key words
| Word | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Hard data | facts you can count or measure | lunches sold |
| Soft data | opinions, feelings and comments | a survey comment |
| On premises | kept on the organisation's own computers | |
| Proprietary | owned by one company and used under its terms | |
| SaaS | software you use over the internet, paid for by subscription | |
| Analytical service | an online tool that analyses data for you |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
By the end of this lesson
Note
I can sort data by its kind and its home to support a workflow design.
Starter
Have a go
Starter
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.
Hard data and soft data
Hard data is fact. You count it or measure it: lunches sold, temperatures, minutes in a queue.
Soft data is opinion or feeling: "the queue was too long". It is harder to count but explains why. A design often needs both.
Try it: both kinds in one table
select avg(rating) as average_rating,
count(comment) as comments_given
from feedback;
-- The rating is hard data. The comment text is soft data.
Check
Have a go
Check
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.