Environmental Informatics Consulting
Jeffrey D. Campbell, Ph.D.
Home About Jeff Campbell Services Community Involvement Workshops
Database Analysis Systems Design Information Visualization Web Design Speaking Writing
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Environmental Informatics Consulting Jeffrey D. Campbell, Ph.D. Home About Jeff Campbell Services Community Involvement Workshops Database Analysis Systems Design Information Visualization Web Design Speaking Writing |
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Support of amphibian monitoring volunteers in a county: www.umbc.edu/marylandfrogs
Beta test of watershed mapping supporting development of a watershed management plan.
Evaluating the ease of use and effectiveness of computer systems and web sites has been a key concept in graduate and undergraduate courses in "human-computer interaction" that Jeff taught at UMBC. He performed a formal review of a non-web system displaying geological data.
During a preliminary review of a web site for data entry by citizen scientist volunteers, some of the problems identified included:
inconsistent use of temperature in Fahrenheit and Celsius
inconvenient list boxes for entry of observation times including poor default values and requiring unnecessary mouse clicks
poor support for people with disabilities (particularly visual impairment)
unclear descriptions for technical terms that the user would encounter rarely
opportunities to add simple data validation processing that could easily improve data quality and provide further education to the volunteer observers. For example, if an observer reports a species never previously observed at that location, a dialog prompting the observer to confirm the identification would encourage a novice to reconsider whether he/she had confused it with a more common species while not preventing the entry of a truly new find.
Jeff designed and implemented a custom interface to Google Maps that makes it easy for residents to explore the subwatersheds being covered in a local watershed management plan. A hierarchical list of watersheds and subwatersheds is provided as well as address search capabilities so a resident can easily find his or her "watershed address." As the plan is developed, information will be added to the maps about restoration areas and sites for retrofitting and remediating storm water problems. The map will be incorporated into the watershed plan website, but for for now the beta test version is here.
Budget cuts have temporarily suspended development of a web site to support volunteers monitoring stream conditions in another county. The web site will allow them to directly enter the data from their observation sheets instead of mailing them to a central office. Volunteers and other citizens will also be able to use the web site to see a map of the areas and retrieve monitoring results.
