An Empirical Study on How Well Do COVID-19 Information Dashboards Service Users' Information Needs

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic highlights the importance of dashboards for providing critical real-time information. In order to enable people to obtain information in time and to understand complex statistical data, many developers have designed and implemented public-oriented COVID-19 information dashboards during the pandemic. However, development often takes a long time and developers are not clear about many people's information needs, resulting in gaps between information needs and supplies. According to our empirical study and observations with popular developed COVID-19 dashboards, this seriously impedes information acquirement. Our study compares people's needs on Twitter with existing information suppliers. We determine that despite the COVID-19 information that is currently on existing dashboards, people are also interested in the relationship between COVID-19 and other viruses, the origin of COVID-19, vaccine development, fake new about COVID-19, impact on women, impact on school/university, and impact on business. Most of these have not yet been well addressed. We also summarise the visualization and interaction patterns commonly applied in dashboards, finding key patterns between data and visualization as well as visualization and interaction. Our findings can help developers to better optimize their dashboard to meet people's needs and make improvements to future crisis management dashboard development.

Automated summary

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of dashboards in providing real-time information. However, there is often a gap between the information needs of the public and the supply provided by existing COVID-19 dashboards. Through an empirical study comparing people's needs on Twitter with existing information suppliers, we found that people are interested in various aspects beyond COVID-19, such as the relationship between COVID-19 and other viruses, its origin, vaccine development, fake news, and its impact on women, schools/universities, and businesses. We also identified common visualization and interaction patterns used in dashboards, which can help developers optimize their designs to meet people's needs and improve future crisis management dashboard development.