Using visualization for teaching

This paper describes a set of visualization techniques that will support the training of environmental economic input-output life-cycle assessment (EIO-LCA) users. ETO-LCA is a software tool used to estimate the environmental effects of any product throughout the course of its life. The process of estimating the environmental effects of a product using the EIO-LCA software prototype consists of the following steps: problem formulation, computations, and results analysis. Empirical software evaluation has shown that user solutions to EIO-LCA problems yield large variability; therefore, users need to have a clearer understanding of the model, and they need to be trained. Instead of using only long tutorial documents and tables to train the users to use the data sources, we have designed a software tool that uses visualization tools to train users in the problem formulation and data analysis tasks. For the problem-formulation task, the coloring matrices will allow users to better understand the economic data used. Also, treemaps are included so users can evaluate the relationships between different levels of aggregation used in the problem formulation. Treemaps were used to allow users to understand both the direct and indirect effects in the results analysis.