Usability of climate information

This contribution discusses the concept of usability of climate information as a practice, and presents a new conceptual framework for its exploration. Decades of research have made evident that availability of climate information does not necessarily lead to climate sensitive policies or planning processes. While well documented technical, contextual, cognitive and structural factors have been discussed as enablers or barriers to usability; still, to date no explanatory model accounts for how usability actually takes place. This research contends that in order to progress in our understanding of the use of climate information, usability must be explored as a practice. The conceptual framework here proposed is constructed based on empirical observations from three city administrations. The framework is rooted on Site Ontologies, where usability results from interactions between people and climate information in a mutually constitutive process that unfolds through professional practices sustained by norms and shaped by experiential knowledge. The site is conceptualised as the coordination of work that articulates the use of climate information. The framework characterises the use of climate information through five typologies. Typologies vary according to policy arenas and are mediated by an interplay with two sets of cross-cutting practices: legitimation and data management practices. The research informs that climate information is used providing it fits working practices, concluding that a deep understanding of how working practices mediate the use of climate information is central to foster comprehension regarding the challenges presented by usability. Hence, it proposes that further research should engage in exploring science-policy interactions as mediated by working practices.