Decision support tools in conservation: a workshop to improve user-centred design

Abstract

A workshop held at the University of Cambridge in May 2017 brought developers, researchers, knowledge brokers, and users together to discuss user-centred design of decision support tools. Decision support tools are designed to take users through logical decision steps towards an evidence-informed final decision. Although they may exist in different forms, including on paper, decision support tools are generally considered to be computer-(online, software) or app-based. Studies have illustrated the potential value of decision support tools for conservation, and there are several papers describing the design of individual tools. Rather less attention, however, has been placed on the desirable characteristics for use, and even less on whether tools are actually being used in practice. This is concerning because if policy-maker or practitioner, then its design will have wasted resources. Based on an analysis of papers on tool use in conservation, there is a lack of social science research on improving design, and relatively few examples where users have been incorporated into the design process. Evidence from other disciplines, particularly human-computer interaction research, illustrates that involving users throughout the design of decision support tools increases the relevance, usability, and impact of systems. User-centred design of tools is, however, seldom mentioned in the conservation literature. The workshop started the necessary process of bringing together developers and users to share knowledge about how to conduct good user-centred design of decision support tools. This will help to ensure that tools are usable and make an impact in conservation policy and practice.

A practical conservation tool to combine diverse types of evidence for transparent evidence‐based decision‐making

“…The third strength of the tool is its versatility; we have deliberately designed as a generic template that can easily be modified and adapted through collaboration and co-design to produce customized versions (Rose et al, 2017). As has been demonstrated in medicine (Rosenbaum et al, 2018), this type of tool can be used in situations where there is a great deal of available evidence, and in situations where evidence is severely lacking or absent from any or all sources (e.g., scientific, undocumented knowledge, or otherwise).…”

A practical conservation tool to combine diverse types of evidence for transparent evidence-based decision-making

“…The tool was created by a discussion of needs for a decision support tool with practitioners at various conservation organisations (Bat Conservation International, Berkshire Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust, Froglife, Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, Ingleby Farms, Kent Wildlife Trust, NatureScot, The Medway Valley Countryside Partnership, and The Woodland Trust). A team of practitioners and researchers worked collaboratively to co-develop and co-design the tool to iteratively improve its user-centred structure and functionality (Rose et al, 2017;Sturm and Tscholl, 2019).…”

“…The third strength of the tool is its versatility; we have deliberately designed as a generic template that can easily be modified and adapted through collaboration and co-design to produce customised versions (Rose et al, 2017). As has been demonstrated in medicine (Rosenbaum et al 2018), this type of tool can be used in situations where there is a great deal of available evidence, and in situations where evidence is severely lacking or absent from any or all sources (e.g., scientific, undocumented knowledge, or otherwise).…”

“…This lays the foundation for greater internal and external scrutiny of how decisions were made and whether different sources of evidence were missed or ignored (whether intentionally, through ignorance, or issues of accessibility). We hope that we can encourage more practitioners to use the tool rigorously and integrate diverse sources of evidence into their decision-making (Rose et al, 2017;Sturm and Tscholl, 2019) by creating a community of practice around the tool, along with free accessible guidance on evidence assessment (e.g., in evidence synthesis -see https://synthesistraining.github.io/), and specific training on the tool's use (e.g., via online videos, outreach events, and guidance documents through repositories like Applied Ecology Resources; https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/appliedecology-resources/search/; Cadotte et al, 2020). We are pleased to report that many of the practitioners that tested versions of this prototype tool are now working to embed the use of the Evidence-to-Decision tool in their organisations' decision-making processes, alongside the use of the Conservation Evidence database and website (www.conservationevidence.com), through the Evidence Champions scheme run by Conservation Evidence.…”

“…Other problems include the fact that some of these frameworks may not be widely known or understood by conservation practitioners, and may be perceived as too complex to use (particularly if they lack an intuitive user interface or reusable template). If more practitioners are to use evidence-based decision-making tools to inform their work, there is a need for more co-designed, user-centred tools (Rose et al, 2017;Sturm and Tscholl, 2019) that are more accessible, widely disseminated, and easier to use (Schwartz et al, 2018).…”