From Data to Action: Applying Psychological Theories to Climate Visualisation Design

Visual communication of climate-aware behaviour to the public is a challenging subject due to the fact that information in such settings is often only processed in a superficial manner. This paper raises the question of which design elements can increase users' motivation to engage with visual information in more detail and can change their climate-related behaviour. We apply psychological theories (e.g., construal level theory, theories about gamification, prospect theory) to delineate design recommendations for climate visualisations motivating users to behave in more environmentally friendly ways. We apply these theories to the design of a prototypical interface. A focus group-based evaluation shows that these design recommendations have huge potential to impact behaviour, but have to be carefully implemented in the design. Grounding climate visualisations in psychological theories has great overall potential for increasing the impact of future systems to promote climate-aware behaviour.