Festoon tutorials: Research poster design: an infographic approach
2. Analysing the text
So now we understand a bit more about the structure of our overall graphic. Let’s look at the messaging, content, and concepts of the sections themselves.
I’m going to use some soft analogies to help us understand how we could represent and think about each section visually.
It will probably be that a lot of these sections will just be text in the final design, but it’s a good exercise to explore the content visually.
Images from UnSplash.com
Presenting the information visually: an exploration
Context – why climate apps?
Over the past decade, climate apps have emerged as ways for citizens to engage in climate action.
Alipay’s Ant Forest has over 650 million users and has planted over 350 million trees.
Similar apps have emerged in North America and Europe (Treecard, Ecosia and Flora – Green Focus) with a growing user base and financial backing.
This justifies why the study is important and sets the scene, asking: why the study is taking place, and how significant the apps are.
I’ll think about this as a background or context when creating the graphic.
Over the past decade, climate apps have emerged as ways for citizens to engage in climate action.
So I’m thinking relevant imagery relating to climate apps and active citizens..
- People using phones
- Phone screens with cross cut sections
- Multiple people using phones at the same time culminating in a mass effect that is larger than any of them.
- Representations of climate action from protest to certification and other forms of campaigning. Let’s read on.
Alipay’s Ant Forest has over 650 million users and has planted over 350 million trees.
I’m looking at these stats and considering the most valuable visualization from these. Wondering about the most effective way to communicate this. The ratio of apps to trees is interesting, for every app used just under half a tree is planted.
But these are still quite big figures which are hard to quantify. Something called "Large Number Incomprehensibility" - our difficulty in intuitively grasping vast quantities due to evolutionary limitations and a lack of real-world references. Using visual aids, analogies, and comparisons can help bridge this comprehension gap.
So let’s break down this statistic into something that is relevant to its audience. Lets assume we’re talking to a UK audience, we can use the population of the UK to illustrate the ant forest’s userbase.
Ant Forest has planted trees equivalent to a little over 5 trees for every person in the UK.
We can then use the visual to communicate the subject or trees and the nature of the statistic being about an app and the act of planting trees. This is a different way of representing that data which could be more engaging than comparing the two larger datasets.
Let’s see how we broke this down:
User Base Comparison:
The UK's updated population for 2021 is 67.33 million
Ant Forest has 650 million users.
650 million is nearly 10 times the population of the UK. So, the user base of Ant Forest is still roughly equivalent to almost 10 times the entire population of the UK.
Tree Planting Comparison:
Ant Forest has planted 350 million trees.
To find out how many trees that is per person in the UK:
350 million trees / 67.33 million people ≈ 5.2 trees per person in the UK
This means that for every person in the UK, Ant Forest has planted a little over 5 trees.
Considering geographical information
Similar apps have emerged in North America and Europe (Treecard, Ecosia and Flora – Green Focus) with a growing user base and financial backing.
So the next piece of information is geographical.
Looking at the localities of the map in a geographical context is also interesting to show the breadth of the movement.
As we’re looking at the breadth of the work completed so far and the geography that relates to that work, it makes sense to represent this geographically.
However, I don’t have access to this level of information to achieve this at this point, so it doesn't quite work yet. But you can see how we would be able to use this.
Either as a heatmap (using shape files to represent a number of app users).
Tool to consider using: MapBox
Theory – how to think through climate apps?
Existing work: Small amount, mainly focusing on China (Zhang, Xiao & Zhou, 2020).
Environment communication: communicating climate change, carbon credits, carbon footprint, and offsetting (Doran et al., 2023).
Digital participation: role of citizens using technology to engage in climate change action (Berlotti, 2022).
Trust: use the work in Critical Data Studies concerning “trust” (Kennedy, Steedman and Jones, 2020).
This section highlights some theory that has already been used to analyse climate apps, and highlights areas of research that will be used to undertake the study.
I’ll think about this like a foundation structure.
Methods – how will we find stuff out?
Scoping database: compile a taxonomy of all climate change, environment and/or sustainability apps.
App analysis: qualitative and quantitative analysis of the apps offering Nature-based Solutions (NbS) (n=31).
Expert interviews: semi-structured interviews with experts in sustainability, environment and/or technology (n=15).
This highlights how the research will be undertaken.
I’ll think about this as the process of discovery in the search for the answer to the research questions.
Research questions – how will research be guided?
RQ1: What are the key functions of NbS apps?
RQ2: How much can we trust NbS to combat climate change?
RQ3: How much can be trust these NbS apps?
Setting the direction that the research will take, and what it will set out to discover.
I’m thinking about this like a compass, which direction to go, and where to direct the questions and work.
Expected findings – what will we know?
- Framework: the findings will be geared towards developing a set of “trust indicators” that provide critical and productive ways to engage with these NbS apps.
- Examples of potential “trust indicators”
> Data privacy – is user data monetised or shared?
> Effectiveness – is the NbS offered an effective way to tackle climate change?
> Politics – does the app allow users to engage with policy?
- Impact: these indicators would be made available to the public to allow them to better understand these apps
So this is really the key deliverable that the work sets out to produce. I think it’s important to make this visible in any infographic that we produce.
The ‘trust indicators’ could take any form, but I’m already thinking about dials and dashboards as visual representations of this.