Product-Generation in ESG: some explorations of the user experience and discussion of implications for the design of ESG Steve Hankin & Roland Schweitzer October, 2007

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 2 Embarrassment disclaimer: Some of the material that follows is review. Some is self-evident. … but some folks are relatively new in ESG … and we wanted to present the material in a coherent fashion

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 3 The user’s experience of ESG begins with the sign-on process. This story board picks up after the user has completed that process …

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 4 ESG provides a data discovery process. The details of that are left for (many) other discussions … In this story board we will merely assume that data discovery process exists, and that a user can return to it by clicking this button: Picker

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 5 Note: Since model output variables exist within a metadata hierarchy … Ensemble (21 st century climate scenarios) Experiment (steady 2001-level CO2 release) Output component (atm., ocn, land, …) Time resolution (monthly, annual,) Variable (wind, temp,…) … preferably the Picker will help the user to remain oriented within this hierarchy. Picker

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 6 The Picker leads the user to at all levels of the hierarchy. Picker

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 7 When variables of interest have been located, the ESG portal will presumably offer a choice of actions, including: 1.Visualize, compare, analyze On-line data only 2.Download On-line and off-line data This story board concerns itself only with Visualize, compare, analyze

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 8 Select visualization type: Maps lat-lon plot Line plots o time series o vertical profile Vertical sections o Latitude-Z o Longitude-Z Hofmuller plots o Latitude-time o Longitude-time o Z-time o Animate o Compare o Download o Animate o Compare o Download o Segue to Variable: Temperature Dataset: Model Foo Picker Here is a conceptual layout of the product services UI …

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 9 Select visualization type: Maps lat-lon plot Line plots o time series o vertical profile Vertical sections o Latitude-Z o Longitude-Z Hofmuller plots o Latitude-time o Longitude-time o Z-time o Animate o Compare o Download o Animate o Compare o Download o Segue to Variable: Temperature Dataset: Model Foo Picker Basic 4D visualization controls effect what shows here…

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 10 Select visualization type: Maps lat-lon plot Line plots o time series o vertical profile Vertical sections o Latitude-Z o Longitude-Z Hofmuller plots o Latitude-time o Longitude-time o Z-time o Animate o Compare o Download o Animate o Compare o Download o Segue to Variable: Temperature Dataset: Model Foo Picker Note 1: Picker is a re-usable component Presumably the zoom-map and depth/time selectors are, too.

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 11 Select visualization type: Maps o lat-lon plot Line plots time series o vertical profile Vertical sections o Latitude-Z o Longitude-Z Hofmuller plots o Latitude-time o Longitude-time o Z-time o Animate o Compare o Download o Animate o Compare o Download o Segue to Variable: Temperature Dataset: Model Foo Picker Note 2: Product generation (e.g. a time series plot) is best based upon “atomic datasets” (aggregations). Who in ESG will ensure that on-line data are available through aggregations? The aggregations must also be communicated to LAS. One solution: a notification to LAS of a change in the ESG THREDDS catalog.

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 12 Select visualization type: Maps lat-lon plot Line plots o time series o vertical profile Vertical sections o Latitude-Z o Longitude-Z Hofmuller plots o Latitude-time o Longitude-time o Z-time o Animate o Compare o Download o Animate o Compare o Download o Segue to Variable: Temperature Dataset: Model Foo Picker Note 3: What about off-line (tape) data? Picker needs to make it clear which data are on-line and which are not. Are the ESG goals for off-line data clear? Will there be a process to migrate off-line files on-line? If so, file migration should include aggregation and notification sent to LAS.

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 13 Select visualization type: Maps o lat-lon plot Line plots time series o vertical profile Vertical sections o Latitude-Z o Longitude-Z Hofmuller plots o Latitude-time o Longitude-time o Z-time o Animate o Compare o Download o Animate o Compare o Download o Segue to Variable: Temperature Dataset: Model Foo Picker Request on-the-fly averaging of data …

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 14 Select visualization type: Maps o lat-lon plot Line plots time series o vertical profile Vertical sections o Latitude-Z o Longitude-Z Hofmuller plots o Latitude-time o Longitude-time o Z-time o Animate o Compare o Download o Animate o Compare o Download o Segue to Variable: Temperature Dataset: Model Foo Picker Request on-the-fly averaging of data … Note 4: Server-side data reduction is a vital piece of high-end product services. LAS knows how to work with server-side capabilities added into TDS. ESG needs to plan for consistency in syntax and capabilities of server-side operations if there are multiple OPeNDAP server implementations in use.

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 15 Select visualization type: Maps o lat-lon plot Line plots time series o vertical profile Vertical sections o Latitude-Z o Longitude-Z Hofmuller plots o Latitude-time o Longitude-time o Z-time o Animate o Compare o Download o Animate o Compare o Download o Segue to Variable: Temperature Dataset: Model Foo Picker Request on-the-fly averaging of data … Note 5: Server-side data reduction implies potentially large (and slow) calculations. Need a mechanism for delayed delivery. And need to be able to limit compute demands on the server.

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 16 Select visualization type: Maps lat-lon plot Line plots o time series o vertical profile Vertical sections o Latitude-Z o Longitude-Z Hofmuller plots o Latitude-time o Longitude-time o Z-time o Animate o Compare o Download o Animate o Compare o Download o Segue to Variable: Temperature Dataset: Model Foo Picker And other products … which will raise issues, too

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 17

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 18 Select visualization type: Maps lat-lon plot Line plots o time series o vertical profile Vertical sections o Latitude-Z o Longitude-Z Hofmuller plots o Latitude-time o Longitude-time o Z-time o Animate o Compare o Download o Animate o Compare o Download o Segue to Variable: Temperature Dataset: Model Foo Picker

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 19 Compare different ensemble members, time steps, heights. (Can also compare vertical sections, time series, etc.)

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 20 Or take diff’s between them Note 6: Taking differences between institutions (ESG nodes) raises issues of authentication, OPeNDAP access, and logging of data accesses. Also requires server-side regridding if grids differ. Aside: We’ll want to provide useful climatologies, too.

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 21 Select visualization type: Maps lat-lon plot Line plots o time series o vertical profile Vertical sections o Latitude-Z o Longitude-Z Hofmuller plots o Latitude-time o Longitude-time o Z-time o Animate o Compare o Download o Animate o Compare o Download o Segue to Variable: Temperature Dataset: Model Foo Picker

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 22 Select visualization type: Maps lat-lon plot Line plots o time series o vertical profile Vertical sections o Latitude-Z o Longitude-Z Hofmuller plots o Latitude-time o Longitude-time o Z-time o Animate o Compare o Download o Animate o Compare o Download o Segue to Variable: Temperature Dataset: Model Foo Picker Note 7: Downloading capabilities will be a foundation of ESG -- outside of product services. Presumably a request to download data made by a user during product browsing should reuse those capabilities. (right?) Should he be able to download area- averaged data? Regridded data? Differences between fields? If there are multiple paths to downloading, we need to harmonize them.

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 23 Select visualization type: Maps lat-lon plot Line plots o time series o vertical profile Vertical sections o Latitude-Z o Longitude-Z Hofmuller plots o Latitude-time o Longitude-time o Z-time o Animate o Compare o Download o Animate o Compare o Download o Segue to Variable: Temperature Dataset: Model Foo Picker

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 24 Select visualization type: Maps lat-lon plot Line plots o time series o vertical profile Vertical sections o Latitude-Z o Longitude-Z Hofmuller plots o Latitude-time o Longitude-time o Z-time o Animate o Compare o Download o Animate o Compare o Download o Segue to Variable: Temperature Dataset: Model Foo Picker Note 8: Segue to desktop implies OPeNDAP access by desktop clients … the topic of many discussions already.

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 25 Select visualization type: Maps lat-lon plot Line plots o time series o vertical profile Vertical sections o Latitude-Z o Longitude-Z Hofmuller plots o Latitude-time o Longitude-time o Z-time o Animate o Compare o Download o Animate o Compare o Download o Segue to Variable: Temperature Dataset: Model Foo Picker Note 9: We should add CDAT and NCL scripts to this list, right? (CDAT is already a back-end visualizer for LAS. Should we make a plan to add NCL, too?)

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 26 Discussion

Nov 2007 ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem 27