Working together to develop, test and evaluate data presentation tools
In December 2023, the Branching Out team gathered for a one-day, in-person meeting in Birmingham. Being able to be in a room together as a whole project team, thinking imaginatively and sharing ideas helps drive this project forward so that we can create outputs that link diverse branches of research. Although the primary agenda began as an ideation-centred internal design jam, the session evolved into a focused exploration of testing and evaluating an internal data presentation tool that some of the team had developed.
Testing an internal tool for data mapping and visualisation
In the morning, the team tested and evaluated cross-work package data compilation tools. Hannah Walker and Joe Fennell have been developing a Geographic Information System (GIS) tool that would enable the research team to see and analyse spatially mapped data elements from the different work packages and facilitate the production of research outputs, such as articles, policy recommendations, or applications for external users.
Hannah and Joe have been using the ArcGIS platform to develop a tool that organises our research data into a comprehensive dashboard, enabling us to see remote-sensed tree data alongside historic tree maps, biophysical data on individual trees recorded in Urban Tree Observatories, stories of the past and present, and georeferenced quotes from citizen panels that are linked to a particular site – coded into different themes and life frames.
In this workshop, the Branching Out team members split into groups with facilitators and were able to try out this tool and provide feedback. Responses included the need for navigation guidelines that would make easier to use for those unfamiliar with GIS and ideas about what additional functionality might be useful. It feels like being able to see all these project strands together has helped us as researchers to turn a corner – to see the progress we have made on this project and how this research could be applied.
Developing ideas for improving a tree-based citizen science platform
Citizen science allows members of the public to engage with their local environment and contribute data that researchers can use, for example to map species occurrences and record phenology. We used part of the afternoon session of this Design Jam to think about how social and cultural values could be integrated within a citizen science tool and consider ideas for updating an existing platform to incorporate some of the findings emerging from the Branching Out project.
Treezilla is a citizen science platform developed by the Open University in collaboration with Forest Research and other enterprises over the last 10 years; it now includes an interactive database of over a million trees. While the primary purpose of this platform is to collect biophysical data on urban trees, there might be an opportunity to develop the website to support representation of more diverse data such as highlighting which trees might be more important to people.
Design Jam participants were asked to get creative and design a new dashboard for Treezilla. When teams reported back, it was clear that users wanted to see more information on the context of individual trees – where does this tree rank in terms of its size? Is this an unusual species? How might it help mitigate risks associated with local flooding and air quality? Has there been a tree on this site for a long time? Why might this tree be important? This discussion aimed to explore potential contributions from the public and get ideas from the Branching Out team for Treezilla's future development.
Branching Out hitting the headlines
In the last session of the day, workshop participants were asked to come up with newspaper articles about activities or events that could hit the headlines as a result of outputs from the Branching Out project. Ideas for news stories included visions for changes in tree management policies, new tools being used to inform urban tree-planting decisions, and exciting experiences to engage members of the public. We could then reflect on actions needed to make these stories become reality – what data would we need, what outputs should we produce, and how would we make them accessible? Working on these ideas creatively together helps us increase the impact of the Branching Out project as we move forward with analysing the data we have collected and developing outputs for different audiences.