Group 2 Final Presentation Better Carbon Calculator Project

Group 2 Final Presentation

Better Carbon Calculator Project

Haley BowmanMichelle Aranda

Takahiro KarasawaPatricio LegrasShyam Panchal

Website Design

Creating the Website

Put Usability of Design First– Questions

How long does it take for each page to load?Is the message unclear or hard to understand?Does the user go to the wrong web pages

when seeking information?

Authors and Audiences

“Web designers form a significant audience for each other’s work…experience in the viewing of other people’s pages as a user would do is seen as a valuable asset in designing pages.”

http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/calculator/

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~wmt/socialCodeGroup/

Empirical Validated Web Page Design

Webpage design should aid scannability by using headlines, colored text for emphasis and 50% less text than on paper (1)

Good pages use many text clusters, many links, and many colors (2)

[1] Ivory, p. 53[2] Ivory, p. 59

Aesthetics

Eco-friendly appearance– Neutral/earth toned colors– Pictures– Brightness/prominence of colors

Original Results Page

Revised Results Page

Revisions

•Heighten impact of total number of carbon tons released per year

–Move to the center of the page–Turn focus to the result itself–Curve rectangle to match style of website

•Create a pie chart that equates the distribution of total emissions

–Red for the most–Orange for the second

Revisions (continued)

The total number and the pie chart were created using a Java AppletReads the numbers directly from html codeSupports infinite number of modules

The key supports up to 10 modules

Animated pie chart

Tags and Modules

Added “What is this?” ButtonFewer tags

12-16 tagsMake tags more meaningful

– Ex: Commuter, Airplane Flyer, etc.

Tags and Modules placed side by sideShows that there are two ways to refine results

Video

Emphasize how small lifestyle changes can make a difference in reducing carbon footprint

Dramatic to inspire action

http://ec2-75-101-202-69.compute-1.amazonaws.com/~group02/

Research

Environmental Threats

“Killer” Heat WavesRising Sea LevelMelting of Artic Ice CapsOther Research

Environmental Solutions

Wide range of solutions– Domestic changes– Transportation changes

Immediately feasible solutionsEPA and Climate Crisis

– Reliability

Advantages of Using the Web in Education

Free of cost for most usersGlobal propagationLessens production, distribution and

archivation of paperEnables more color and visual aids

Goals of Website

Easily accessible and designed for a diverse audience

Show how computer technology can inspire action to improve current environmental problems

Benefit the actual Better Carbon Calculator website

References

Terry, Thomas M. "Weaving the Web into Biology teaching". BioScience. Vol. 49, No. 9. 733-741

Calongne, Cynthia. "Designing For Web Site Usablitity". D.CS. JCSC 16, 3 (March 2001), CCSC: South Central Conference

Christine Hine. "Web Pages, Authors and Audiences. The Meaning Of A Mouse Click" Communication & Society 4:2 2001 182-198

Ivory, Melody. Sinha, Rashmi. Hearst, Marti. "Empirically Validated Web Page Design Metrics". CHI 2001. Volume No.3, Issue No. 1.