sam stehle rob kitchin - european commission · sam stehle rob kitchin....

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Visual Indicators of Real-Timenessin Smart City Dashboards

Sam StehleRob Kitchin

dashboards.maynoothuniversity.ie dashboards@mu.ie @dashbuild

Dashboards take many forms

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“…something that’s very dynamic”

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Dashboard uses and users

• Transportation decisions

• Comparison to other cities

• Monthly reports

• Custom visualisations

• Goal benchmarking

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Making data usable

Real-time data from smart IoT

Trusted smart statistics

Dashboards

• How frequent?

• How does it compare?

• Is it actively producing?

• How responsive to the real world?

• How variable is it?

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Considering the roles that dashboards play as

• Combining real-time and archival data,

• Catering to novice and advanced users,

• Presenting the image of a city

• Interfacing between data and decisions

How can dashboard design increase trustworthiness?

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Trust and realtimeness

Weltevrede, E., Helmond, A., & Gerlitz, C. (2014). The politics of real-time: A device perspective on social media platforms and search engines. Theory, Culture & Society, 31(6), 125-150.

• Relevance algorithms promote different timings

• Different devices, different speeds

• Storing/archiving capacity

• Sensor latency

• Interface rendering

• Computational vs. experienced real-time

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Manual or automatic refresh?

• No interruption to pattern analysis• Requires interaction

• “I don’t need to click on something to get actual information”

• High risk of change blindness

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Real-time metadata (auto refresh)

• Age of the data• Cannot infer refresh rate

• Lifespan of current data• Can plan for data replacement

Can either method demonstrate data veracity?

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Historical real-time data

• Linear representation is familiar to work with

• Better seasonality detection• City activity has regular

patterns

• Tracking progress toward development goals

• Provides context for real-time data

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Situational awareness

• Necessary for rapid response to emerging disasters

• Assess situation, project, respond

• Using data visualisation techniques

• Which information is useful?

• Which information is out of date?

• Which information is actionable?MacEachren, A.M. et al (2011) SensePlace2: GeoTwitter Analytics Support for Situational Awareness. IEEE Symposium on Visual Analytics Science and Technology. Oct 23-28, Providence, RI, USA

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Topology of Real-Time VisualisationMethod Advantage

Real-timeness

Manual refresh Data on demand

Auto refresh No input necessary

Indicator of refresh type No unnecessary interaction

Time since last update Data currency

Time until next update Preparedness for data replacement

Indicator of refresh rate Data frequency

Updates in clock time No time translation necessary

Updates in local time Coincides with local functions

Spatial display Spatially comparable Data-at-a-glance

Archival display

Archival display Long-term patterns

Controllable archive timing Trend and seasonality visibility

Benchmarking Contextual comparison

Comparable archive No interactivity necessary

dashboards.maynoothuniversity.ie dashboards@mu.ie @dashbuild

Recommendations – User PreferencesMethod Advantage

Manual refresh Data on demand

Auto refresh No input necessary

Indicator of refresh type No unnecessary interaction

Time since last update Data currency

Time until next update Preparedness for data replacement

Indicator of refresh rate Data frequency

Updates in clock time No time translation necessary

Updates in local time Coincides with local functions

Spatially comparable Data-at-a-glance

Archival display Long-term patterns

Controllable archive timing Trend and seasonality visibility

Benchmarking Contextual comparison

Comparable archive No interactivity necessary

“… I don’t need to click on something to get to the actual information.”

“… what a dashboard is for, it’s for dynamic information.”

“… has its indicators like, okay, how… how real or how real time the indicators are…”

“it’s moving. Yeah, it’s changing. Yeah, so I really like it.”

“Why can’t I just immediately on the dashboard see a map… I can see patterns on the map… local knowledge actually develops from looking at the map, right?”

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Remaining challenges

• Standard uses without standard design principles or data

• Change blindness

• Archival storage

• Spatio-temporal pattern analysis

• Improve data literacy

• Maintenance of real-time infrastructure

• Move from high-detail data to comparable insight

dashboards.maynoothuniversity.iedashboards@mu.ie

@dashbuild

We gratefully acknowledge funding from

Science Foundation Ireland

under the Investigator’s Award Program.

Award number: 15/IA/3090

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Sam Stehle

Rob Kitchin

Maynooth University

Maynooth, Ireland

@sam_stehle

sam.stehle@mu.ie