After remembering The Folly of Predictions episode of Freakonomics I had to listen again. It holds up, except for the dated wide-eyed referencing of the Pandora app, doing music recommendation things we all now take for granted.

Parts that still work for me feel even more applicable though. Specifically to my belief that a lot of the time in design industries, we’re just chancing it.

Acting like our processes and patterns of behaviour are precursors to guaranteed success, when often our activities are just celebrating the avoidance of imagined leopards… 

It’s much more costly for someone not to detect a pattern… to make a mistake of not seeing a leopard… [it’s better to have] the illusion of a pattern and imagining a leopard where there is none.

Nassim Taleb

Doing something, repeating patterns of behaviour, and relying on the activity alone as a prediction for success, is better than the risk of doing nothing.

Another bit that really get to the nub of our clearly dysfunctional relationship with predictions and those that make them, is this little musing by the host half way through… 

Can you imagine? Every time a pundit appeared on TV, the network would list his batting average, right after his name and affiliation. You think that might cut down on blowhard predictions just a little bit?

Can you imagine, every time an agency or consultancy delivered a project, the industry would list the quantitive returns and outcomes of their work?  

Then there’s this bit right at the end, an exchange between the original authors of Freakonomics. A great way to conclude and summarise the ideas in the episode…

Steve Levitt: When there are big rewards to people who make predictions and get them right, and there are zero punishments for people who make bad predictions because they’re immediately forgotten, then economists would predict that’s a recipe for getting people to make predictions all the time.

Stephen Dubner : Because the incentives are all encouraging you to make predictions.

Levitt: Absolutely.

Dubner: If you get it right, there’s an upside, and if you get it wrong, there’s almost no downside.

Levitt: Right, if the flip side were that if I make a false prediction I’m immediately sent to prison for a one-year term, there would be almost no prediction.

There’s almost no downside to design work being ineffective – Or, more specifically – in design work providing little return on investment, other than it subtly pleasing a senior client or stakeholder.

How can we be sure that our designs deliver more value, than pundits do with their predictions?