Ideas

Some ideas for different ways to represent and present meter data with the aim of supporting institutional sustainability initiatives. Broadly speaking we are looking and how to combine quantitative measures of energy use with measures of real world action in support of the initiative.

Setting targets

Setting targets is difficult. Should they be given to groups by some external body, or should they be derived internally. How can targets be compared? How can they be represented.

To get things rolling on our own visualisations we will assume the aim of each groups it to meet the energy reduction targets set out in the carbon management strategy:

Reduce scope 1 and 2 CO2 emissions by 11% by 2015/16 (compared to 2005/6 levels)
Reduce scope 1 and 2 CO2 emissions by 33% by 2020/21 (compared to 2005/6 levels)

We can then use a formula to calculate how this saving can be achieved month by month when spread evenly over the time leading up to each target deadline.

Community action interface e.g. reducing electricity consumption

This screen shots below (please click images to see larger version) describes a prototype interface to help individuals in organisations act to reduce their electricity use. It brings together a visualisation of energy use with freely available collaboration tools into a simple interface.

Visualisation: A representation of electricity use that shows performance against a target. This visualisation represents electricity as water in a bucket that is dripping at the rate of use. This component will require some development work i.e. to make the meter data openly online and then use visualisation tools to represent electricity against a target. A Google Docs Spreadsheets is an simple way to achieve this but the are currently only a limited set of graphical forms available. http://processing.org/ is one way to make more advanced representations although this will require some coding and for you to find a server to host the visualisation.
Incentives: In an attempt to help people avoid the Rebound Effect savings should be ring-fenced and invested more sustainable activities. Groups can use http://www.allourideas.org/ to brainstorm investment options (e.g. money towards solar panels) and then vote on where the money actually goes.
Engagement: A section describing how the initiative is going in plain language. It could include financial savings (against a target) or use https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges to afford achievement.
Leadership Role: The picture and name of the person with institutional responsibility for the initiative. This person is also represented in any comparative league tables that seek to rank the success of groups.
Communication: Links to the tools the group has decided to use for communication and engagement e.g. google groups, facebook, twitter, RSS, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kickstarter.
Openness: Ideally all groups would keep their initiative openly visible to the world. Openness affords transparency and helps groups learn and interact with each other. The complexity of the technical implementation increases when a system is closed down too i.e. there is suddenly the need for authentication and authorisation, which makes retrieving and using real-time data in the visualisation much more difficult.

The dials for comparing

Brilliant example here at domestic national UK level: http://www.alertme.com/community/resources/energymap

Something similar for Universities/departments/offices. (Which can be contrasted with an ecotricity graphic that doesn't do much for the individual.

One second view

High - Medium - Low etc

e.g. in receptions

10 second view

Better than x, worse than y, same as z.

e.g. on FB feeds, emails, receptions.

2 steps forward, one step backwards

This data and bar graph shows what could be done with a 2 steps forward, one step backwards analogy. This would be a very quick way to see how different groups compare with each other i.e. wrt a monthly target.

A punchy unit for expressing an energy saving

Cars off the road, equivalent of UK household, hot air balloons full of CO2, meals equivalent,

Little fish in a big ocean

Show relation of individual consumption actions in relation to a more global statistic e.g. energy consumed by a computer compared with a power station

A big push - staging events

Again along the the lines of energy reduction as a process there could be a class of visualisation that is designed for a big push - a time when an organisation makes a big effort to reduce its consumption for a short time e.g. Climate Week. This would the occupy an emotional space in terms of baselining and defining when alerts are left on.

Annotating time vs. energy graphs

With comparable organisations plotted together. Best when there are interesting shapes e.g. a spike at midnight.

Sculpture

Along the lines of these:

i.e. make a physical or situated representation of data, especially when the effort is shared and agreed by a group (as in the great example from a street in Brighton).

My cute animal

Turkle-esque emotional attachment to animals and tools. An animal calibrated to get frantic during the day when electricity is being consumed, to get overly tired, to have fits if too high above a target. In the evening, if baseloads don't drop sufficiently the animal don't get a good night sleep. Importantly (maybe) when things are off, the animal that embodies all the tools is not off, just relaxing i.e. fully alive still. Need to read Sherry Turkle's new book! Take a look at http://gickr.com/ to see if it can be used to animate this kind of representation (based on an energy feed).

Note: apparently miserable animals are not motivating!

Our town/farm/shared space

The better the data the nicer the city looks online. (emotional attachment to property/ physics space).

Taking ideas from this video - the city should grow and decline as a measure of cooperative activity: http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html

(and people should be able to punish others for non-cooperation).

The Olympic race track

Athletes representing different types of entities (houses, businesses, people) race around a track according to their environmental performance.

There are leagues, real medals and the races can be set at any time e.g. to coincide with marketing pushes from for instance 10:10 and climate week.

Obvious link with the Olympics to be held in London during 2012.

The mother ship

A website, with tailored URL, with a statistic, a range of graphics with different views onto the same entity, and a way to push people identities onto it e.g. from facebook. The page also has actions, and people can endorse them, and get into groups to perform the actions together. The actions then change the graphics, in an entirely transparent way, and people can see the knock on effect of the action in a news feed etc.

In other words on one page:

infographic that show different views onto an entity. the data shows trends, is real time, accurate, endorsed etc
register of identities
register of links to groups
news about the entity

Make a concrete argument

This graphic about the AV vote made me wonder if we might be in danger of making visualisations that are too scientific and neutral e.g. polite hypotheses. It is after all perfectly fine to provoke if you assume your audience is adult.

Unreal data

Create models relating to sharing, jevons paradox, sugarscape and generate data. Show non-linear dynamics and interrelatedness. Get people testing their world-views about bigger topics e.g. growth. Could also do business models such as ecotricity approach vs greenwash approaches.

Mashup - Odom et al

See the reading list page for reference to Odom et al paper and attachment 1 below.

Piggyback

Pick some culturally significant statistics and graphics and use their form and presentation approach e.g. GDP, tube map, boat race league tables, cricket worm, footy scores etc. (Like a saprophyte).

It doesn't have to be data (as in numbers)

As the Guardian data blog and McCandles remind us - data visualisations should tell a story. The 10:10 campaign visualisation of stories on a map (RSS feeds + GIS) is interesting because it allows people to see local news on a theme directly related to action. All that is needed for this is OxPoints + OxItems in Oxford.

Notes

Can we insert some kind of Like button or somehow allow people to say which ones they like? (we could use a flickr gallery instead
Prototypes could be put into a gallery of objects where people can vote, comment etc - the most liked could then be built. The gallery would also help refine existing and promote new visualisations. The gallery could also help people collaborate on building visualisations e.g. finding data, finding good tools, doing the visualisation art work, promoting etc.
Thinking about some overall heuristics for the design of these representations:
- How long will someone look
- Designed for an individual or a group
- Mashed up with other data
- Aesthetic appeal vs scientific appeal
- Abstract and simple vs detailed and precise
- Use of humour
- Space where it will be presented e.g. email, web page, within a social network, mobile
- Emotional attachment e.g. anthropomorphism
- Social anxiety e.g. comparing individuals/ groups
- Use of rewards e.g. earning badges, money, kudos
Groups that choose to be open with their data might feel the need to defend poor performance. In the framework of a badge system they would get many points just for staying open. There's some psychology in here especially for managers.

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