Op-e-nion

Overview

Op-e-nion is a highly customizable interactive data visualization tool designed to help public administrations and institutions analyze public opinion on environmental issues. It supports exploration across socio-demographic groups and geographic scales, enabling more informed policy design and evaluation.

Project context: Public Administration - Scientific reports (Nature) journal / Institution: Barcelona Supercomputing Center 

Type: Dashboard / Maps / Data story / Scientific Visualization / AI explainability

My role: UX Lead / Main researcher

Duration: 14 months

Service design approach applied to the design of a data visualisation tool, including user research, conceptualisation and evaluation

Challenge 

This work was developed as a research collaboration involving multidisciplinary experts, including UX designers, visualization researchers, and domain specialists, and is documented in a Scientific Reports (Nature) article. The tool was created to address challenges in understanding complex, multi-categorical Eurobarometer datasets and to support decision-making in environmental policy contexts.

Public opinion data — especially large, multi-categorical datasets — are difficult to interpret with standard tools, often leading to cognitive overload and limited insights for users without technical training. The challenge was to design an interface that allows administrative users to explore diverse data layers intuitively, customize views based on analytical needs, and derive actionable insights without getting lost in complexity.

UX Methodology

We applied a service-design informed UX process involving three core stages:

User Research & Requirements Gathering

1. Conducted surveys and interviews with potential users to identify key questions they needed the tool to answer (e.g., identifying less committed demographic groups, comparing patterns across regions).

2. Selected relevant socio-demographic variables and public opinion indicators from the Eurobarometer dataset based on real user needs.
   
   

Co-creation & Prototyping

1. Hosted co-creation sessions with domain experts and users using collaborative tools like MURAL to brainstorm interaction patterns and visualization concepts.

2. Designed an initial prototype integrating highly customizable visualizations aimed at balancing analytical depth with usability.
   
   

Validation & Iterative Improvement

1. Evaluating the prototype with expert users and non-state actors, collecting qualitative feedback to assess navigation, chart interpretation, and customization workflows.

2. Refining visual encodings, view hierarchies, and interaction mechanisms to improve clarity and reduce cognitive load based on real user feedback

By combining user research, co-creation with domain experts, and iterative validation, the interface helps non-technical users interpret complex environmental opinion datasets and draw actionable insights for decision-making.

Final outcome

The final version of Op-e-nion offered interactive views that allowed users to explore public opinion data across countries and socio-demographic groups, compare patterns, and uncover barriers to engagement. Highly customizable visualizations enabled users to switch between analytical and managerial views, supporting both deep analysis and succinct summary reporting for decision-making. By anchoring design decisions in user needs and feedback, the tool helped users understand complex data and draw insights relevant to environmental policy. 

Link: www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-54457-3