How will we know if it works?
One of our key customer groups are researchers who will use the site to gain access to projected species distribution maps for all or some climate change scenarios to use to inform their own research. For these customers, it is important that they can
- locate information relevant to their research interest
- explore the details within this context
- use the information within their own research.
To achieve the first and second points, the product needs to provide an intuitive and flexible user interface for selecting species, browsing the map, selecting climate change scenarios, and interacting with the future time-line. To achieve the third point, the products needs to ensure that the data is available for download and that adequate metadata is included. The metadata will need to provide provenence of input data, details of methodology and relevant citation information.
Another key user group are individuals recruited to provide expertise with respect to the vetting of observation records. For these users, they will need to be able to
- quickly locate species occurrences within their area of expertise
- see for which occurrences vetting is required
- easily record vetting decisions across individual or groups of occurrences
We are gathering a list of willing testers from the researchers and vetters groups for our site evaluation. Most of these will be not local to JCU and will be testing the site remotely. Lauren, our data analyst, will collect feedback on the usability of the site from the test group. These evaluations will be feedback to the development team.
The final group of end users are the general public who we are aiming to educate on the impacts of climate change. No formal testing of this group will be undertaken.
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