Effective Visual Communication of Climate Change
Boulder, Colo., USA: The consequences of a warming climate frequently dominated the news this
summer, from devastating wildfires and floods to deadly heat waves across
the globe. Reducing harm from climate change is a challenging endeavor, and
it requires comprehensive public education. Thus, the question arises: How
can climate change science be made most accessible to the general
population, as well as decision-makers and educators?
In a new paper published in the journal Geosphere, Steph Courtney and Karen
McNeal explore the effects of improved data visualizations on user
perception of climate change evidence.
With a geoscience background and a specialization in science education and
communication, Courtney is passionate about improving the public’s
understanding of climate change. “We get excited and carried away as
scientists but that’s not going to work for a lot of audiences,” says
Courtney. “Your communication goal is more important than how cool you think
your graph is.”
In this study, the team redesigned three graphs from the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report. They assessed the
impact of the redesign on graph usability (i.e. individuals’ ability to
accurately and quickly extract information from it) and user perception of
scientist trustworthiness and climate change risk, which correlate to both
knowledge and intention to take action. The process was iterative, including
two rounds of user testing and successive redesign and re-testing. Methods
included a combination of surveys, eye-tracking, ranking activities, and
interviews.
While the overall usability of the redesigned charts was found to be
equivalent to that of the originals, study participants perceived all of the
redesigned figures to be more trustworthy. Participants also reported one of
the redesigns made them more concerned about climate change than the
original.
An interesting question explored in this study was whether more simplistic
figures would look “less scientific” and thus less trustworthy.
Surprisingly, this did not turn out to be the case. “Pretty is fine,”
explains Courtney. “If it looks nicer, it looks like you put time into it,
so you care about it and you know what you are doing. Understandable and
attractive graphs can be trustworthy. It is a win-win!”
The authors found that familiar figure formats were most useful; even minor
changes to standard charts were confusing to the audience. Intentional use
of color-coding was very important to participants, increasing both their
understanding and perception of credibility. Likewise, minimal use of
additional explanatory text on axes and fields greatly helped in those
respects, although visual cluttering is a potential downside.
Graph redesign in this study was subtle, in order to be able to confidently
parse out which change resulted in what improvement. Yet some of these
changes were quite impactful. “Little changes that take just a bit of effort
can make the science more accessible and meaningful to people. It is worth
that little bit of effort. Communication is not the only barrier in
addressing climate change, but it is an area we can stand to improve—and it
is worthwhile,” emphasizes Courtney.
Courtney sees the future of this research field focusing on practical
examples of climate scientists’ top priorities for public understanding of
and actions to address climate change, perhaps attempting more dramatic
graph edits. She will share her results with the IPCC and is looking forward
to seeing their next assessment report.
FEATURED ARTICLE
Seeing is believing: Climate change graph design and user judgments of credibility, usability, and risk
S.L. Courtney and K.S. McNeal
Contact: Steph Courtney, scourtney@usetinc.org
https://doi.org/10.1130/GES02517.1
GEOSPHERE articles published ahead of print are online at
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/geosphere/early-publication.
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