Brenda Caldwell Phillips

The DeepTree Exhibit: Visualizing the Tree of Life to Facilitate Informal Learning

In this paper, we present the DeepTree exhibit, a multi-user, multi-touch interactive visualization of the Tree of Life. We developed DeepTree to facilitate collaborative learning of evolutionary concepts. We will describe an iterative process in which a team of computer scientists, learning scientists, biologists, and museum curators worked together throughout design, development, and evaluation. We present the importance of designing the interactions and the visualization hand-in-hand in order to facilitate active learning. The outcome of this process is a fractal-based tree layout that reduces visual complexity while being able to capture all life on earth; a custom rendering and navigation engine that prioritizes visual appeal and smooth fly-through; and a multi-user interface that encourages collaborative exploration while offering guided discovery. We present an evaluation showing that the large dataset encouraged free exploration, triggers emotional responses, and facilitates visitor engagement and informal learning.

Teaching Tree Thinking to College Students: It’s Not as Easy as You Think

The ability to understand and reason with tree-of-life diagrams (i.e., cladograms), referred to as tree thinking, is an essential skill for biology students. Yet, recent findings indicate that cladograms are cognitively opaque to many college students, leading them to misinterpret the information depicted. The current studies address the impact of prior biological background and instruction in phylogenetics on students’ competence at two foundational tree-thinking skills. In Study 1, college students with stronger (N = 52) and weaker (N = 60) backgrounds in biology were asked to (a) identify all the nested clades in two cladograms and (b) evaluate evolutionary relatedness among taxa positioned at different hierarchical levels (two questions) and included in a polytomy (two questions). Stronger-background students were more successful than weaker-background students. In Study 2, a subset of the stronger-background students (N = 41) who were enrolled in an evolution class subsequently received two days of instruction on phylogenetics. As expected, these students’ tree-thinking skills generally improved with instruction. However, although these students did very well at marking the nested clades, fundamental misinterpretations of relative evolutionary relatedness remained. The latter was especially, although not exclusively, the case for taxa included in a polytomy. These results highlight the importance of teaching cladistics, as well as the need to tailor such instruction to the difficulties students have learning key macroevolutionary concepts.

“Whoa! We’re going deep in the trees!”: Patterns of collaboration around an interactive information visualization exhibit

In this paper we present a qualitative analysis of natural history museum visitor interaction around a multi-touch tabletop exhibit called DeepTree that we designed around concepts of evolution and common descent. DeepTree combines several large scientific datasets and an innovative visualization technique to display a phylogenetic tree of life consisting of over 70,000 species. After describing our design, we present a study involving pairs of children interacting with DeepTree in two natural history museums. Our analysis focuses on two questions. First, how do dyads negotiate their moment-to-moment exploration of the exhibit? Second, how do dyads develop and negotiate their understanding of evolutionary concepts? In order to address these questions we present an analytical framework that describes dyads’ exploration along two dimensions: coordination and target of action. This framework reveals four distinct patterns of interaction, which, we argue, are relevant for similar interactive designs. We conclude with a discussion of the role of design in helping visitors make sense of interactive experiences involving the visualization of large scientific datasets.

FlowBlocks: a multi-touch ui for crowd interaction

Multi-touch technology lends itself to collaborative crowd interaction (CI). However, common tap-operated widgets are impractical for CI, since they are susceptible to accidental touches and interference from other users. We present a novel multi-touch interface called FlowBlocks in which every UI action is invoked through a small sequence of user actions: dragging parametric UI-Blocks, and dropping them over operational UI-Docks. The FlowBlocks approach is advantageous for CI because it a) makes accidental touches inconsequential; and b) introduces design parameters for mutual awareness, concurrent input, and conflict management. FlowBlocks was successfully used on the floor of a busy natural history museum. We present the complete design space and describe a year-long iterative design and evaluation process which employed the Rapid Iterative Test and Evaluation (RITE) method in a museum setting.

FloTree: a multi-touch interactive simulation of evolutionary processes

We present FloTree, a multi-user simulation that illustrates key dynamic processes underlying evolutionary change. Our intention is to create a informal learning environment that links micro-level evolutionary processes to macro-level outcomes of speciation and biodiversity. On a multi-touch table, the simulation represents change from generation to generation in a population of organisms. By placing hands or arms on the surface, visitors can add environmental barriers, thus interrupting the genetic flow between the separated populations. This results in sub-populations that accumulate genetic differences independently over time, sometimes leading to the formation of new species. Learners can morph the result of the simulation into a corresponding phylogenetic tree. The free-form hand and body touch gestures invite creative input from users, encourages social interaction, and provides an opportunity for deep engagement.