Data is policy: presentation as aesthetics and public infrastructure

Presented byRebecca E. Skinner, San Francisco AQ/ Manylabs

Summary: This presentation discusses the way in which NAAQS criteria pollutant data is presented to non-technical end users. Beyond aesthetic issues, the author suggests that such environmental data is essential urban infrastructure. Data presentation is policy.

Readings of NAAQS pollutants in an air district, AirNow, or AQ data company presentation are available through a web browser, on your phone or your computer, or occasionally on the monitoring device itself. The information is shown as a number, with the canonical AQI colors from green, yellow, and orange, through red and purple. 
 There are many possibilities beyond this default display convention. Graphic depiction of the data may be more easily intuitively grasped, for instance, with a so-called "fuel gauge". AQI level depiction using colored lights, for instance LED and LIFX bulbs, is seen in projects found on Facebook's Purple Air User groups, and in Louisville's Smart City project.

Beyond the issues of graphic depiction, public data presentation can be considerably increased. One option would be to have AQ accompany the time and temperature on the LED tickertape readout on public buildings, schools and banks. AQI data would be a worthy public service announcement in in numerous venues: displays on top of cabs and bus stations, on the live screens of office building lobbies, near escalators, and in elevators.

Yet environmental data display is more than an aesthetic question. When framed as public infrastructure, possibly combined with connectivity, electrical, or other municipal service, it is a harbinger of future social needs and technical prospects. The increasing exigency of environmental data in an era of climate emergency makes the communication of AQ data more important and more intriguing than it may initially appear.

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