{"id":950,"date":"2009-11-13T17:28:12","date_gmt":"2009-11-13T21:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/?p=950"},"modified":"2010-02-01T12:29:34","modified_gmt":"2010-02-01T17:29:34","slug":"what-do-we-want-from-climate-informatics-tools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/2009\/11\/what-do-we-want-from-climate-informatics-tools\/","title":{"rendered":"What do we want from climate informatics tools?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_961\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-content\/UsableClimate-nov2009-21.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-961\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-961\" title=\"UsableClimate-nov2009-2\" src=\"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-content\/UsableClimate-nov2009-21-300x205.jpg\" alt=\"Criteria for tools that communicate climate science to a broader audience (click for bigger)\" width=\"300\" height=\"205\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-content\/UsableClimate-nov2009-21-300x205.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-content\/UsableClimate-nov2009-21-1024x700.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-content\/UsableClimate-nov2009-21.jpg 1071w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-961\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Criteria for tools that communicate climate science to a broader audience (click for bigger)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I gave my talk last night to <a title=\"Toronto Region Computer-Human Interaction\" href=\"http:\/\/www.torchi.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">TorCHI<\/a> on <a title=\"Abstract for my talk on Usable Climate Science\" href=\"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/?p=910\" target=\"_blank\">Usable Climate Science<\/a>. I think it went down well, especially considering that I hadn&#8217;t finished preparing the slides, and had just gotten off the plane from Seattle. I&#8217;ll post the slides soon, once I have a chance to tidy them up. But, judging by the questions and comments, one slide in particular went down well.<\/p>\n<p>I put this together when trying to organize my thoughts about what&#8217;s wrong with a number of existing tools\/websites in the space of climate science communication. I&#8217;ll post the critique of existing tools soon, but I guess I should first explain the criteria:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Trustworthy<\/strong> (i.e. the audience must be able to trust the information content):\n<ul>\n<li><em>Collective Curation<\/em> captures the idea that a large community of people is responsible for <a title=\"Wikipedia article on digital curation\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Digital_curation\" target=\"_blank\">curating<\/a> the information content. The extreme example is, of course, wikipedia.<\/li>\n<li><em>Open<\/em> means that we can get inside and see how it&#8217;s all put together. Open source and open data probably need no explanation, but I also want to get across the idea of &#8220;open reasoning&#8221; &#8211; for example, users need access to the calculations and assumptions built into any tool that gives recommendations for energy choices.<\/li>\n<li><em>Provenance<\/em> means that we know where the information came from, and can <a title=\"A Mark Fox paper sketching out some ideas about knowledge provenance\" href=\"http:\/\/www.eil.toronto.edu\/km\/papers\/fox-kp1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">trace<\/a> it back to source. Especially important is the ability to trace back to peer-reviewed scientific literature, or to trusted experts.<\/li>\n<li>And the tool should help to <em>build a <\/em><em>community<\/em> by connecting people with one another, through sharing of their knowledge.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Appropriate<\/strong> (i.e. the form and content of the information must be appropriate to the intended audience(s)):\n<ul>\n<li><em>Accessible for <\/em><a title=\"CAP's audience segmentation analysis for climate change communication\" href=\"http:\/\/www.americanprogress.org\/issues\/2009\/05\/6americas.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>audience<\/em><\/a> &#8211; information must build on what people already know, and be provided in a form that allows them to assimilate it (Vygotsky&#8217;s\u00a0<a title=\"Wikipeda on ZPD\" href=\"http:\/\/www.eil.toronto.edu\/km\/papers\/fox-kp1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Zone of Proximal Development<\/a> captures this idea well).<\/li>\n<li><em>Contextualized<\/em> means that the tool provides information that is appropriate to the audience&#8217;s specific context, or can be customized for that context. For example, information about energy choices depends on location.<\/li>\n<li><em>Zoomable<\/em> means that different users can <a title=\"Zoomable User Interfaces\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Zooming_user_interface\" target=\"_blank\">zoom<\/a> in for more detailed information if they wish. I particularly like the idea of infinite zoom shown off well in <a title=\"The Hard Rock Memorabilia collection (but you'll need to install Silverlight to see it)\" href=\"http:\/\/memorabilia.hardrock.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">this demo<\/a>. But I don&#8217;t just mean visually zoomable &#8211; I mean zoomable in terms of information detail, so people who want to dive into the detailed science can if they wish.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Effective<\/strong> (i.e. actually works at communicating information and stimulating action):\n<ul>\n<li><em>Narrative force<\/em> is something that seems to be missing from most digital media &#8211; the tool must tell a story rather than just provide information.<\/li>\n<li>Get the users to form the right <em>mental models<\/em> so that they understand the science as more than just facts and figures, and understand how to think about the <a title=\"Morgan et al on Communicating Risk\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=kfM1OZNjeAwC&amp;sitesec=reviews&amp;source=gbs_navlinks_s\" target=\"_blank\">risks<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><em>Support exploration<\/em> to allow users to follow their interests. Most web-based tools are good at this, but often at the expense of narrative force.<\/li>\n<li>Give the <em>big picture<\/em>. For climate change this is crucial &#8211; we need to encourage <a title=\"Weinberg's classic text on systems thinking\" href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/products\/catalog?q=systems+thinking&amp;oe=UTF-8&amp;hl=en&amp;cid=15142764609873311515&amp;sa=title#p\" target=\"_blank\">systems thinking<\/a> if we&#8217;re ever going to get good at collective decision making.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Compelling<\/strong> (i.e. something that draws people in):\n<ul>\n<li><em>Cool<\/em>, because coolness is how <a title=\"Just in case nobody's told you about this cool idea yet :-)\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Viral_marketing\" target=\"_blank\">viral marketing<\/a> works. If it&#8217;s cool people will tell others about it.<\/li>\n<li><em>Engaging<\/em>, so that people want to use it and are drawn in by it.<\/li>\n<li><em>Fun and Entertaining<\/em>, because we&#8217;re often in danger of being too serious. This is especially important for stuff targeted at kids. If it&#8217;s not as much fun as the latest video games, then we&#8217;re already losing their attention.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>During the talk, one of the audience members suggested adding <em>actionable<\/em> to my list, i.e. it actually leads to appropriate action, changes in behaviour, etc. I&#8217;m kicking myself for forgetting this, and can&#8217;t now decide whether it belongs under effective, or is an entirely new category. I&#8217;ll welcome suggestions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I gave my talk last night to TorCHI on Usable Climate Science. I think it went down well, especially considering that I hadn&#8217;t finished preparing the slides, and had just gotten off the plane from Seattle. I&#8217;ll post the slides soon, once I have a chance to tidy them up. But, judging by the questions [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":392,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,76],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/392"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1310,"href":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions\/1310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.easterbrook.ca\/steve\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}