The Human-Air Interface: Responding To Poor Air Quality Through Lived Experience and Digital Information

TY - GEN

T1 - The Human-Air Interface

T2 - 2022 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference: Digital Wellbeing, DIS 2022

AU - Gupta, Meghna

AU - Eden, Grace

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022 ACM.

PY - 2022/6/13

Y1 - 2022/6/13

N2 - The Air Quality Index (AQI) is a set of numerical, color-coded metrics used to communicate air pollution levels. AQI data is available through a variety of mediums such as mobile apps, websites and public displays. However, the information communicated through these may not be easily interpretable to everyone. Especially when scientific data and associated representations are used to convey information to communities whose shared knowledge and practices are significantly different from Western scientific contexts. We discuss findings from a qualitative study conducted in Delhi, India to understand how residents across both low- and high-resourced communities, assess their personal risk around air pollution and the safety measures they take to mitigate that risk. We reveal incompatibilities between the air-quality information displayed in digital platforms and whether that information is interpretable for people with different cultural sensitivities. We conclude with design implications for improving the interpretability and relevance of air quality interfaces.

AB - The Air Quality Index (AQI) is a set of numerical, color-coded metrics used to communicate air pollution levels. AQI data is available through a variety of mediums such as mobile apps, websites and public displays. However, the information communicated through these may not be easily interpretable to everyone. Especially when scientific data and associated representations are used to convey information to communities whose shared knowledge and practices are significantly different from Western scientific contexts. We discuss findings from a qualitative study conducted in Delhi, India to understand how residents across both low- and high-resourced communities, assess their personal risk around air pollution and the safety measures they take to mitigate that risk. We reveal incompatibilities between the air-quality information displayed in digital platforms and whether that information is interpretable for people with different cultural sensitivities. We conclude with design implications for improving the interpretability and relevance of air quality interfaces.

KW - Air Pollution

KW - Air Quality Interfaces

KW - Ethnography

KW - India

KW - Lived Experience

KW - Risk Communication

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85133621929&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1145/3532106.3533563

DO - 10.1145/3532106.3533563

M3 - Conference contribution

AN - SCOPUS:85133621929

T3 - DIS 2022 - Proceedings of the 2022 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference: Digital Wellbeing

SP - 1085

EP - 1098

BT - DIS 2022 - Proceedings of the 2022 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference

PB - Association for Computing Machinery, Inc

Y2 - 13 June 2022 through 17 June 2022

ER -