Opportunities of Touch-Enabled Spherical Displays to support Climate Conversations

TL;DR

This paper investigates how touch-enabled spherical displays can enhance climate education by enabling intuitive interactions and collective exploration, identifying key opportunities and technical considerations for future development.

Contribution

It provides an exploratory analysis of potential interaction opportunities and technical solutions for spherical displays in climate education contexts.

Findings

Identified key opportunities for improving climate data understanding.

Provided technical recommendations for developing meaningful interactions.

Highlighted the importance of embodied interaction in science communication.

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.