The Tendo View

Design geeks across the Web were buzzing last month in response to the announcement that Edward Tufte, a statistician and professor emeritus at Yale University, was appointed by President Obama to the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel. The move was seen by many as a much-needed boost to help restore trust—not just in the Obama administration, but in the U.S. government as a whole.

How could Tufte possibly do this? Two words: transparency and accountability.

Tufte’s role

Tufte’s job is to help explain how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, all $797 billion of it, is being spent. The most recent manifestation of that effort is the Recovery.org website, which allows you to track the Federal stimulus spending by state, district, ZIP code…all the way down to individual recipients. You can track how many jobs have been funded, how many projects have been completed, and how much of the funding has been actually allocated. In short, you can see exactly where the money, all of the money, is going or will go.

The hope is that transparency may help clear up some of the public’s misconceptions, and accompanying derision, around the stimulus spending. By clearly demonstrating where the money is going, the U.S. government is being more accountable to the public. And by being more accountable, the U.S. government’s “brand” may benefit by appearing more trustworthy and responsible.

Why design is key

Here’s where the design aspect comes in. The data displayed on Recovery.org was presumably publicly available before the site was developed. But the challenge was in making that information accessible and understandable. I’d say the Recovery.org site does a pretty good job of that, especially if compared to other government information resources. Ever try to find a piece of data on the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) site, for example? If you can manage to mine the data you need, it will likely appear in the form of a menacing chart displaying statistics that require a lot of background knowledge to understand. However, if you’re trying to turn the tide of public perception, clarity is key.

Whether the Recovery.org website will succeed in changing minds remains to be seen. At the very least, people can access some real data to support their many opinions on the stimulus bill.

If building trust and accountability is important to your brand perception, creating transparency through good information design may help relationships with your customers. But even if you’re not trying to create transparency, good information design can still improve your brand perception in the eyes of customers.

The basic idea behind the Recovery.org site is to make the information accessible and easy to find. Customers always appreciate that, no matter what kind of website they’re accessing. And if they’re looking for specific information, about a product for example, making that information easy to find can make all the difference. Consider a tech support or customer service site—if needed information is difficult to find, an already frustrated customer will only become more frustrated.

So take a tip from Obama and try to make it easier for your customers to find out what they need to know.

How do you think information design can help improve customer relationships? Leave a comment to let me know.