Talk given as part of Online Seminars on Human Computer Interaction and User Experience Presented by British Computer Society Interaction Group and Interacting with Computers, 27 February 2023 https://alandix.com/academic/talks/BCS-IwC-Covid-Feb-2023/ This talk draws on diverse psychological, behavioural and numerical literature to understand some of the challenges we all face in making sense of large-scale phenomena and use this to create a roadmap for HCI responses. This body of research points the way toward current challenges and equips us with tools and principles that can help HCI researchers deliver value. The talk is framed by looking at patterns and information that highlight some of the common misunderstandings that arise – not just for politicians and the general public but also for those in the academic community’s heart. This talk does not have all the answers to this, but we hope it provides some and, perhaps more importantly, raises questions that we need to address as scientific and technical communities.

1. Why pandemics and climate change
are hard to understand and make
decision making difficult
Alan Dix1,2 Raymond Bond3 Ana Caraban4
1Computational Foundry, Swansea University
2Cardiff Metropolitan University
3University of Ulster at Jordanstown
4Universidade de Lisboa Instituto Superior Tecnico
https://alandix.com/academic/talks/BCS-IwC-Covid-Feb-2023/

2. a UK University Vice-Chancellor
on Radio 4 Today programme
just after announcement that
A’ level exams were cancelled
“if it is safe to keep schools open for children of
key workers, then surely it is safe for students
to gather spread out in an exam hall.”
(paraphrase)

3. WASH your hands religiously for
20 seconds, sneeze into your
elbow, avoid touching your face,
stay 1 metre away from all other people
and, as a last resort, self-quarantine for a
week with only your emergency rations for
company. If you want to avoid getting the
new coronavirus, all of these are a good
idea. But ultimately, one of the most
important things standing between you and
a deadly bout of covid-19 is your immune
system.”
New Scientist, 28 March 2020
https://www.newscientist.com
/issue/3275/

4. a relative in the US
“I don’t understand,
first it was one or two
and then it was thousands”

5. What’s wrong?
if it is safe to …
– essentialism and dichotomous reasoning
– levels of risk, cost/benefit trade-off
if you want to avoid getting the new coronavirus
– diffuse responsibility & communal benefits
– reducing spread, individual actions insignificant
first it was one or two and then it was thousands
– numerosity, exponential growth

6. By CDC/ Alissa Eckert, MS; Dan Higgins, MAM - https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=86444014
By NASA ICE - A close look at the shelf, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24450299
By ChiralJon - CC BY 2.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75011663
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=190949
not just coronavirus
climate change
Brexit
… not to
mention

7. Notecards 1987
F. Halasz, T. Moran, and
R. Trigg (1987).
Notecards in a nutshell.
CHI ’87. pp.45–52.
doi:10.1145/29933.30859

8. HCI design challenges
Inspired by the pandemic.
Considerations including for visual analytics,
data viz., dashboards and decision making.
Anchoring bias
Numerosity
Ikea effect
Sunk cost bias
Confirmation
bias
Counterfactual
reasoning
Regret
minimization
Dichotomous
thinking
Cost/benefit
tradeoffs
Diffuse
responsibility
Availability
heuristic
Endogroup bias
Exponential
growth
Hidden states
Visualising
uncertainty
Presentation
of risk
Economics of
human lives
Problems with
large numbers
General
Reasoning
Complexity
Numerical Reasoning
Complexity

9. general reasoning and complexity
essentialism & dichotomous reasoning
• risk vs safety
perception of cost and benefit
• argumentation models
fixed condition assumptions
• models of the economy, individual behaviour
bias related to change
• what would have happened
diffuse responsibility & communal benefits
• prisoners’ dilemma, (not the) tragedy of the commons
availability and locality
• filter bubbles, HCI “no tradition”

10. general vs numerical reasoning
or …

11. Conferencer 1990
J. McCarthy,and V. Miles (1990
).. Elaborating communication
channels in conferencer. Proc.
of the IFIP WG 8.4 Conf. on
Multi-user interfaces and
applications, 1990. pp.181--193

12. vfridge 2000
A. Dix, R.Beale, N. Shabir and J.
Leavesley (2011). Anatomy of an
Early Social Networking Site. Proc
HCI 2011. pp.243–252.
http://alandix.com/academic/
papers/hci2011-vfridge/

13. gIBIS
J. Conklin, &M. Begeman, (1988).
gIBIS: A Hypertext Tool for
Exploratory Policy Discussion..
ACM Trans. Inf. Syst.. 6. 303-331.
10.1145/62266.62278.
S. Buckingham Shum. (1998).
Negotiating the Construction of
Organisational Memories. Jnl. of
Univ. Computer Science. 3. 55-78.
10.1007/978-3-662-03723-2_4.

14. Deb8
Carneiro, G., Nacenta, M.,
Toniolo, A., Mendez, G.,
Quigley, A. (2019). Deb8: A Tool
for Collaborative Analysis of
Video. In Proceedings of the
2019 ACM International
Conference on Interactive
Experiences for TV and Online
Video (TVX '19). ACM, NY,
USA, 47–58. DOI:
10.1145/3317697.3323358

15. ICP (2016). ICP, World
Press Photo Foundation,
and Newcastle University’s
Open Lab Launch Image
Authoring Initiative At World
Press Photo Awards Days.
Media Release, International
Centre for Photography, New
York, NY. April 20, 2016.
https://www.icp.org/files/ICP
_FourCorners_press-
release.pdf

16. numerosity
Qualitative–Quantitative reasoning
between arithmetic and mathematics
• exponential growth
• understanding of large numbers
• networks and feedback
• hidden state and time
• uncertainty
• common sense
wages
jobs
tax Qualitative–Quantitative
Reasoning: the qualitative
understanding of quantitative
phenomena.
https://alandix.com/qqr/

17. megalitre (unit of volume)
1000 cubic metres
220,000 imperial gallons
~ 30 truck loads
large numbers

18. networks … for non experts too …
SOCNETV: Social Network
Analysis and Visualization
Software
https://socnetv.org/

19. hidden state
National Geographic June 2018.
https://nationalgeographicbackis
sues.com/product/national-
geographic-june-2018/

20. uncertainty
probability …
Triggle, N. (2021), Covid:
Are cases about to plummet
without plan b?
BBC News 26 Oct. 2021.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/
news/health-59039739

21. … and the unknown
Barnard, R. C., Davies, N. G.,
Pearson, C. A., Jit, M.
and Edmunds, W. J. (2021a),
‘Autumn–winter scenarios
2021–2022’, Working Paper,
London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine, 13th
October 2021. https://assets.
publishing.service.gov.uk/gover
nment/uploads/
system/uploads/attachment_da
ta/file/1030874/S1385_
SAGE96_LSHTM_Autumn_an
d_Winter_scenarios.pdf.

22. common sense
can be misleading …
“I know someone who …”
but also a check to abstraction
early UK models doubling every 4–5 day
≠ reality every 2.5 days

23. beyond spreadsheets …
https://alandix.com
/labs/calq/

24. beyond spreadsheets …
https://alandix.com
/labs/calq/

25. beyond spreadsheets …
alandix.com
/labs/calq/

26. beyond spreadsheets …
https://alandix.com
/labs/ws2/

27. https://alandix.com
/labs/ws2/

28. The economics of death
£20-30,000 per QALY (Quality Adjusted Life Year)
Healthy 30 year old ~ £1 million
80 year od with existing illness ~ £100,000
https://www.nice.org.uk/Media/
Default/guidance/LGB10-
Briefing-20150126.pdf

29. The economics of death
£350bn = 350,000 fit 30 year olds
or 3.5 million sick 80 year olds
https://www.theguardian.com/
uk-news/2020/mar/17 /
rishi-sunak-pledges-350bn-to-
tackle-coronavirus-impact
?

30. challenge for us in HCI community
understand, design, build
advice, tools, visualisations
to help
politicians
scientists
journalists
general public

31. Why pandemics and climate change
are hard to understand and make
decision making difficult
Alan Dix1,2 Raymond Bond3 Ana Caraban4
1Computational Foundry, Swansea University
2Cardiff Metropolitan University
3University of Ulster at Jordanstown
4Universidade de Lisboa Instituto Superior Tecnico
https://alandix.com/academic/talks/BCS-IwC-Covid-Feb-2023/