Connecting audiences with climate change: Towards humanised and action-focused data interactions

This paper investigates the relationship between design research and humancomputer interaction (HCI) in the context of climate change communication and engagement. We discuss current practices in climate change communication and the decrease in concern and engagement caused by “crisis fatigue”. Through Research through Design (RtD), we set out to investigate data humanism and how users react to climate change data, testing approaches to improve engagement. With this purpose, we designed and evaluated Finding Arcadia, an interactive data story that uses data humanism to shift the dialogue from crisis-focused to action-focused. One study with the original IMF visualisations (N = 17) and two studies in public spaces (N = 12 and N = 64) point to the contextualization of the data and presenting actionable solutions helping in engaging users with climate change issues; help in creating solution-focused narratives and interpreting and relating with climate data. From these results, we derive insights for designing empowering interactive data visualizations for resilient climate change engagement.