Opportunities of Touch-Enabled Spherical Displays to support Climate Conversations
Mathis Brossier, Mina Mani, Agathe Malbet, Konrad Schönborn, Lonni Besançon
TL;DR
The paper addresses the challenge of communicating complex climate data in public spaces and proposes touch-enabled spherical displays as embodied interfaces to support climate conversations. It employs two exploratory workshops to identify interaction opportunities and practical guidelines for implementation. The study identifies two main interaction clusters—understanding and navigating data—and offers concrete recommendations on legends, layering, personalization, external references, timeline controls, and technical designs such as map layers, gestures, overlay windows, split views, and extra displays. The work provides a foundation for designing engaging, multi-user climate visualizations in museums and science centers, with potential to enhance climate literacy and public engagement.
Abstract
We explore how touch-sensitive spherical displays can support climate conversations in museums and science centers. These displays enable intuitive and embodied interaction with complex climate data, and support collective exploration. However, current interaction capabilities of spherical displays are limited. Therefore, this exploratory study aims to identify potential opportunities to develop meaningful interactions and technical solutions. Through two workshops, key opportunities were identified to improve visitors' understanding and navigation of climate data, along with recommendations for technical implementation. Our results provide guidelines and aspects to consider for future research and development in this area.