Digital Solution’s Impacts#
In considering the user experience, you also need to consider the types of impacts the digital solution will have on both the user and wider. Impacts can be both positive and negative, and considerations should be given to promoting the positive impacts and minimising the negative impacts.
Types of impacts#
We will use the CSIRO’s impacts categories [CSIRO, 2020] of social, personal, economic and environmental to consider how needs are met through by your solution. Impacts also involves consideration of the relationship between information systems and society and in particular the ethical and legal obligations of individuals and organisations regarding ownership, privacy of data and information
Impacts are defined through the creation of goals and context-dependent needs at the start of the project. At the end of a project, an evaluation of the degree to which these planned impacts were implemented is conducted.
Personal Impacts#
Personal impacts change the way that a person does something or alters their opinions, knowledge or wellbeing.
Personal impacts can fall into many categories:
Health and wellbeing - an individual’s physical, mental, emotional and social health.
Access to resources, services and opportunities - an individual’s access to knowledge and participation in social and economic life.
Quality of life - an individual’s material and livelihood security.
Personal safety - an individual’s protection from dangerous materials, product, processes and people.
Resilience - an individual’s capacity to withstand or recover from loss or adversity.
Culture and heritage - an individual’s capacity to participate in their cultural and preserve its heritage.
Economic Impacts#
Impacts on an economic system at a local, national or global level such as changes in revenue, operating costs, profitability, gross domestic product, employment or investment returns.
Economic impacts can fall into many different categories:
National economic performance - the capability to influence or change at the macroeconomic level, i.e. economy-wide impacts, such as changes in unemployment, national income, rate of growth, gross domestic product, inflation and price levels.
Trade and competitiveness - the capability of trade-exposed firms to succeed in international competition against leading international competitors.
Productivity and efficiency - the capability to influence or change the production of products and services such as risk, profitability and productivity aspects, and sustainability of the production and consumption system. This also includes the capability to influence or change the performance measures related to the supply chain members.
Management of risk and uncertainty - the capacity for rapid innovation at scale to reduce risk of damage or lost opportunity (in the form of early warnings or early identification of opportunities).
Policies and programs - the capability to influence or change the coordination and governance of social, economic and environmental policies and programs.
New services, products, experiences and market niches - The capability to develop new products and services, through technological and organisational innovations, including in the following areas: food, soil and water, transport, cybersecurity, energy and resources, manufacturing, environmental change and health.
Animal health and prosperity - The capacity to reduce the likelihood of invasive animal diseases that have the potential to cause significant harm to the economy from entering, emerging, establishing or spreading within Australia.
Securing and protecting existing markets - The capacity to maintain and/or increase returns from existing market access.
Environmental Impacts#
Impacts on living and non-living natural systems, including ecosystems, land, air and water.
Environmental impacts can fall into many different categories:
Air quality - The degree to which the air in a particular place has changed.
Ecosystem health and integrity (natural capital) - The variety and connections between plant and animal life in the world or in a particular habitat. Focus on plants and animals within an area and how they interact with each other as well as with other elements such as climate, water and soil. Also the ecosystem services provided to protect ecosystems and biodiversity. Look to add the concepts around natural capital.
Climate - Focus on atmospheric, land and ocean patterns and the changes in these over time.
Natural hazards mitigation - Steps taken to contain or reduce the effects of an anticipated or already occurred disastrous events (such as drought, flood, fire, lightning, various levels and types of storms, tornado, storm surge, tsunami, volcanic eruption, earthquake, landslides)
Energy generation and consumption - The creation of energy using various technologies and processes and its effect on the environment. The effect of the use of created energy and the benefits of efficiency measures.
Land quality - Land use and management with effects on soil and the surrounding environment. Actions taken to rehabilitate the land after production processes.
Aquatic environments - Changes in quality and abundance of marine and freshwater resources. Water systems, availability, quality, access and management.
Built environments - The human-made surroundings in which people live, work, and recreate on a day-to-day basis ranging from buildings and parks to supporting infrastructure, such as water supply or energy networks.
Data Impacts#
The storing and accessing of data have unique impacts which you will also need to consider. These fall in the Social and Economic categories.
Transparency, accountability and empowerment of users#
Enhanced access and sharing is a key means for improving transparency and empowering users. Some examples include:
increasing transparency in the financial market can empower consumers so they become able to better compare existing offerings. This in turns can contribute to a higher level of competition in the market.
customers empowered to retrieve their data, move more easily to an alternative supplier, which puts competitive pressure on suppliers to keep prices low and compete on features.
enhanced access and sharing in science is critical for transparency and for scrutinising and replicating scientific results. Evidence suggests that the quality of scientific research depends on the extent to which the underlying data can be accessed by other scientists.
use of governmental open data by citizens can also help increase openness, transparency and accountability of government activities and thus boost public trust in governments.
Business opportunities including for data intermediaries and start-ups#
Enhanced access can also create new business opportunities for smaller and larger firms. For example
better access to open government data can allow entrepreneurs to develop innovative commercial and social goods and services.
enables many business opportunities for data intermediaries. Most end users prefer to rely on data intermediaries that access raw data to extract and present the embedded information in more user-friendly ways rather than directly use raw data. These intermediaries typically provide added-value services including advanced data analytic services.
Co-operation and competition across sectors and countries#
Enhanced access and sharing can facilitate joint production or co-operation with suppliers, customers or even competitors. This is not a new phenomenon. Joint research ventures or patent pools are well-known examples, where firms share common resources. Data access does not need to be open to the public, but may be limited to the partners who share their data.
For example:
the re-use of data enabled the integration of transport and navigation services across different means of transport
in science and research, data-sharing platforms (research data repositories) can reduce the cost of conducting research by enabling collaboration among researchers across disciplines.
besides co-operation, enhancing access to and sharing of data is also seen as a major enabler and even driver of competition.
Crowdsourcing new insights and user-driven innovation#
For data providers, enhanced access and sharing can provide significant economic and social benefits, even when data are made available free of costs. It can for instance enable new strategic partnerships, where organisations agree to share, or where a community emerges that creates additional value that a single organisation would not be able to create.
For example:
granting users access to their personal data can provide insight into their own consumption that can lead to changes in behaviour
users experiment providing indication of future opportunities for businesses.
Increased efficiency across society through data linkage and integration#
Enhanced access and sharing is an enabler of increasing value where data linkage across organisations and sectors is possible. This is because data linkage enables “super-additive” insights.
For example:
data linkage across institutions has been recognised as key for monitoring and increasing the efficiency and quality of the health care system.
data linkage and integration may also be critical for deploying smart applications across sectors, such as for smart cities. The data produced and collected in these cities are created by multiple actors.
Unit 1 subject matter covered:
understand and describe personal, social and economic impacts [QCAA, 2017]
Unit 1 subject matter covered:
explore and communicate the personal, social and economic impacts of storing data in a database for individuals, organisations and governments
recognise the elements needed for a data-driven solution, including the personal, social and economic impacts of storing data in databases for individuals, organisations and governments [QCAA, 2017]
Social Impacts#
Social impacts alter the well-being of the surrounding and wider community.
Social impacts can fall into many different categories:
Health and wellbeing - the physical, mental, emotional and social health of a population.
Access to resources, services and opportunities - the access to knowledge and participation in social and economic life of members of a population.
Quality of life - the material and livelihood security within a population.
Safety - the protection of a population from dangerous materials, product, processes and people.
Security - physical and psychological protection against an actual or perceived external threat.
Resilience - a population’s capacity to withstand or recover from loss or adversity.
Culture and heritage - the capacity of a population to participate in their cultural and preserve its heritage.
Innovation and human capital - the productive wealth of a population embodied in labour, skills and knowledge.
Social cohesion - includes the level of social inclusion, social capital and social mobility found in a population.