Smart Surveillance: Learning from Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs was a great designer. From the Macintosh to the iPad, the products he designed have provided users around the world with a much needed improved technology experience. Design is about solving problems and as we continue our smart surveillance series, it’s time to look at the role of “Information Designer”. From information overload and saturation to break down in trust and skepticism, casinos need information designers to solve the numerous information problems we have at casinos.

How do I become an information designer? Start with what you have and most people have excel, which is a useful information design tool. Get to know excel well by purchasing an easy to read book like “Excel for dummies”. Getting your data into an electronic tool is absolutely essential. Once you have your data in an electronic tool like excel, you can begin to visualize your data. When you visualize information, you start to be able to see the patterns and connections that matter. It allows your readers to focus on what really matters and you provide a solution to this sense of information overload and data glut that we’re all suffering from. Take the following example; a spread sheet of armed forces and defense budgets (courtesy of Information is beautiful) :

At first glance, you might be drawn to the huge US defense budget and formulate the following view in your mind:

Or, you might dig deeper and form more interesting connections with the data. The diagram above can easily depict the US as an aggressive, war-mongering military machine. However, it doesn’t seem fair to not factor in the wealth of a country when assessing its military budget. When you take military budgets as a proportion of each country’s GDP, a very different picture emerges.

The US is suddenly knocked down into 8th place by such nations as Jordan, Burundi and Georgia. Why are these other nations spending so much on their military? Time to dig deeper …

CheetEye information design tools provide users with the ability to extract useful casino data into tools like excel and our own propriety tools, so that users can enter the world of information design. Information designers are in hot demand as they are the problem solvers. Take some small steps and start designing. You could become the most valuable asset at your casino!

Thanks for designing great products Steve Jobs. You’ve left a design legacy!