SOFTWARE ATE DESIGN: Creation and destruction of value through design research with data

This chapter considers the implications of data-driven technologies on design research within a period that has seen radical change for the discipline. The chapter revisits an epoch in which software ate the world, a phrase introduced by Marc Andreessen (2011) to describe the development of platform economies powered by software, enhanced by large datasets and very clever business models, that consumed established analogue brands and supply chains. Following an introduction that sets the scene about the nature of these transformations, the chapter explores how the use of software technologies within design is changing the way in which research is informed by data-driven technologies and suggests that software is likely to eat design unless it develops a critical approach to the use of new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). The chapter goes on to explore the methods and principles of software development that are transferrable to design before recovering the ablative framework for designing from/with/by data and uses a series of cases studies to exemplify how design is taking place.