CDT Away Day Talk: Qualitative–Quantitative reasoning �and lightweight numbers

Talk at EPIC CDT Away Day, St Davids Hotel, Cardiff, 11th April 2024.

https://alandix.com/academic/talks/CDT-away-day-April-2024-QQ/

As academics we need to deal with numbers including project management spreadsheets and student marks. In addition, they are part of day-to-day life whether household budgeting or working out how many socks to pack for a journey. Perhaps most crucially, many national and global issues require an understanding of numeric information from climate change to tax rates, and of course the Covid-19 pandemic. If citizens are not able to make sense of this, democracy fails. Of course, many are not only uncertain when dealing with numbers, but suffer more or less extreme maths anxiety. Indeed a recent UK survey found that, “over a third of adults (35%) say that doing maths makes them feel anxious, while one in five are so fearful it even makes them feel physically sick”. Sometimes detailed calculations are necessary, but often the critical skill is qualitative–quantitative reasoning, that is a qualitative understanding of quantitative phenomena. This can after be aided by the ability to use back-of-the-envelope calculations and dealing with lightweight numeric information. This talk discusses these issues and presents some prototype tools to explore the design space for personal numeric information.

This talk is largely the same as the one of the same name given at Ulster University in February. However, the slides have been updated to correct web material misattributed to BBC which was actually Guardian. An eagle-eyed member of the audience spotted that the font in the screenshot was one found in the Guardian online web and not the BBC.

1. Alan Dix https:// alandix.com / qqr / https:// alandix.com /academic/papers/AVI2024-justcounting/ @ alanjohndix Qualitative–Quantitative reasoning and lightweight numbers

2. today I am not talking about … deep digitality and digital thinking next generation UX tools long tail of small data intelligent interfaces physicality now digital light walking round Wales virtual crackers and slow time digital humanities and community heritage modeling dreams, regret and the emergence of self

3. 2 nd edition coming soon plus … AI for HCI AI for Social Justice plugs

4. climate change numbers matter … in short …. being a C21 citizen covid Brexit growing inequality

5. facts arguable/twisted message false

6. Guardian – fact check message true facts incorrect https:// www.theguardian.com /politics/2018/ jan /15/leave-campaigns-350m-claim-was-too-low-says-boris-johnson

7. Guardian – fact (double) check raw = £350m after rebate = £276m minus half of that = (£138m) net figure = £138m actually ~ £170m

8. not a lot? ~ a street full

9. arithmetic mathematics ?

10. the qualitative understanding of quantitative phenomena

11. HCI?

12. HCI for qualitative quantitative reasoning in HCI visualisation tools for quick and dirty calculation

13. Fitts Law in practice HCI for qualitative quantitative reasoning in HCI visualisation tools for quick and dirty calculation CSCW critical mass

14. scientific QQ Fitts Law as cybernetics

15. Electrostatically-charged crop sprays

16. Above canopy model ground at 0 V open boundary condition complex sprayer at high voltage + 1000s V charged spray drops model path, speed and space voltage due to drop cloud ?

17. Within Canopy Model crop modelled as straight sides ground at bottom +V – charged spray enters crop canopy from above; speed and charge determined by above canopy model.

18. Within Canopy Model crop modelled as straight sides ground at bottom +V – charged spray enters crop canopy from above; speed and charge determined by above canopy model.

19. Misses crop (Class I)

20. Good spread (Class II)

21. All at the top (Class III)

22. Connect and re- parameterise + 1000s V above crop model within crop model dimesionless parameters

23. Design/engineering interventions X

24. BBC – fact (mis)check

25. data and provenance quotes and context Snip!t make it easy! 1970s file systems, Word and PPT

26. data and provenance quotes and context Snip!t make it easy! 1970s file systems, Word and PPT

27. Monotonic reasoning Shops to politics

28. ↑ more automation ↓ less labour needed ↑ higher productivity ↑ higher prosperity ↓ less employment ↓ lower wages ? people better off ↑ ↓

29. ↑ more automation ↓ decline of other companies ↑ more competative ↑ growth of company ↓ less jobs elsewhere ↑ more jobs there ? overall employment ↑ ↓

30. numerical data numeric data and innumeracy more BBC – 35,000 m 3 vs 35 km 3 qualitative–quantitative reasoning iVolver worksheets

31. the size of Wales ( TSoW ) 478 square kilometers 184.5 square miles about 1¼ times the size of the Isle of Wight 184.5 sq miles 146.8 sq miles

32. numerical data numeric data and innumeracy more BBC – 35,000 m 3 vs 35 km 3 qualitative–quantitative reasoning iVolver calQ worksheets

33. iVolver (Méndez, Nacenta & Vandenheste , 2016) https:// www.youtube.com / watch?v =wnJ80cEKKxo https:// sachi.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk /research/ visualisation / ivolver /

34. calQ export

35. WS2 (worksheets)

36. WS2 (worksheets)

37. WS2 (worksheets)

38. a tool ecology

39. in summary numbers matter qualitative–quantitative reasoning lightweight numeric tools

40. Qualitative–Quantitative reasoning and lightweight numbers Alan Dix https:// alandix.com /