Embarrassment disclaimer: Some of the material that follows is review. Some is self-evident.

1. Product-Generation in ESG:some explorations of theuser experienceanddiscussion of implications for the design of ESGSteve Hankin & Roland SchweitzerOctober, 2007

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 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 … ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem

4. Picker 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: ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem

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

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

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

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

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

10. Variable: TemperatureDataset: Model Foo Picker • Animate • Compare • Download • Segue to • Animate • Compare • Download • Select visualization type: • Maps • lat-lon plot • Line plots • time series • vertical profile • Vertical sections • Latitude-Z • Longitude-Z • Hofmuller plots • Latitude-time • Longitude-time • Z-time 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. ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem

11. Variable: TemperatureDataset: Model Foo Picker • Animate • Compare • Download • Segue to • Animate • Compare • Download • Select visualization type: • Maps • lat-lon plot • Line plots • time series • vertical profile • Vertical sections • Latitude-Z • Longitude-Z • Hofmuller plots • Latitude-time • Longitude-time • Z-time 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. ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem

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

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

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

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

16. ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem

17. Variable: TemperatureDataset: Model Foo Picker • Animate • Compare • Download • Segue to • Animate • Compare • Download • Select visualization type: • Maps • lat-lon plot • Line plots • time series • vertical profile • Vertical sections • Latitude-Z • Longitude-Z • Hofmuller plots • Latitude-time • Longitude-time • Z-time ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem

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

19. 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. ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem

20. Variable: TemperatureDataset: Model Foo Picker • Animate • Compare • Download • Segue to • Animate • Compare • Download • Select visualization type: • Maps • lat-lon plot • Line plots • time series • vertical profile • Vertical sections • Latitude-Z • Longitude-Z • Hofmuller plots • Latitude-time • Longitude-time • Z-time ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem

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

22. Variable: TemperatureDataset: Model Foo Picker • Animate • Compare • Download • Segue to • Animate • Compare • Download • Select visualization type: • Maps • lat-lon plot • Line plots • time series • vertical profile • Vertical sections • Latitude-Z • Longitude-Z • Hofmuller plots • Latitude-time • Longitude-time • Z-time ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem

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

24. Variable: TemperatureDataset: Model Foo Picker • Animate • Compare • Download • Segue to • Animate • Compare • Download • Select visualization type: • Maps • lat-lon plot • Line plots • time series • vertical profile • Vertical sections • Latitude-Z • Longitude-Z • Hofmuller plots • Latitude-time • Longitude-time • Z-time 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?) ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem

25. Discussion ESG Story Board v2 – Product Subsystem