Breathing smarter: A critical look at representations of air quality sensing data across platforms and publics

The advent of digital technologies have caused cities to become increasingly connected with and reliant upon mobile, fixed, and remote sensing networks used toward urban planning, commerce, governance, and civic engagement. As sensor devices and sensor data become more ubiquitous over time in urban environments, it will be even more crucial to be critical of how sensor data are represented and how to design for optimal legibility for its intended audience. Air quality data, though relatively accessible and open for cities suffering from severe air pollution like Shanghai, China, and New Delhi, India, still pose problems with regard to representation. Data interfaces for air quality sensor data seem to assume or overlook public literacy in environmental standards, sensor calibration, sensor network resolution, and baseline technical knowledge about sensor devices. This paper examines how air quality sensor data are collected and given form across various projects. It will look closely at city dashboards, open data portals, and project-based data visualizations as well as analyze how meaning might be constructed from these interfaces. Finally, the paper will suggest a preliminary research agenda for further assessing how sensor data are represented to publics as cities increasingly rely on sensor networks.