Massive is Light

Although the vast availability and exchange of information is a source of richness, it also brings tremendous complexity, opening questions on how to gather the right information or use data to improve democracy. Even though experts are working on emerging technologies to aggregate information and retrieve new insights, there remains the big challenge of how audiences can interact with digital content to focus on meaning and impact.

With Massive is Light research project, EPFL+ECAL Lab meets this challenge et tackles the complexity of mass information environments by focusing on high usability and user experience satisfaction, specifically: use cases, visual language, and interactions. 

Taking in consideration both visual and functional criteria, the research is based on quantitative evaluations and qualitative observations on two different projects: Faveeo and Debate InSight. The first digital platform is an aggregation tool that generates context for the masses of information gathered by daily internet searches, and the second one, developed for COP21, enhances understanding of major public debates and clarifies their complexities.

Building up on these learnings, EPFL+ECAL Lab has identified, through user testing, key issues within digital environments and defined a visual language that increases user engagement. According to the newly established guidelines, both platforms have been entirely redesigned.

Debate InSight and Faveeo propose new ways to interact and visualize the content. They also offer the possibility to customize the navigation path in order to match the user’s interests. In the complex world of massive information, they focus on simplicity as well as transparency, and include unprecedented features that significantly increase engagement and interaction.

Massive is Light offers digital solutions to manage big data for everyday use and proposes a set of pragmatic strategies to design digital services for massive information environments. These design guidelines will be published within the coming months.

This research has been led by Romain Collaud for his academic thesis within MAS in Design Research for Digital Innovation.