An ethical visualization of the NorthCOVID-19 model

Abstract

When modelling epidemics, the outputs and techniques used may be hard for the general public to understand. This can cause fear mongering and confusion on how to interpret the predictions provided by these models. This article proposes a solution for such a model that was created by a Canadian institute for COVID-19 in their region; namely, the NorthCOVID-19 model. In taking these ethical concerns into consideration, first the web interface of this model is analyzed to see how it may be difficult for a user without a strong mathematical background to understand how to use it. Second, a system is developed that takes this model’s outputs as an input and produces a video summarization with an auto-generated audio to address the complexity of the interface, while ensuring that the end user is able to understand the important information produced by this model. A survey conducted on this proposed output asked participants, on a scale of 1 to 5, whether they strongly disagreed (1) or strongly agreed (5) with statements regarding the output of the proposed method. The results showed that the audio in the output was helpful in understanding the results (80% responded with 4 or 5) and that it helped improve overallcomprehension of the model (85% responded with 4 or 5). For the analysis of the NorthCOVID-19 interface, a System Usability Scale (SUS) survey was performed where itreceived a scoring of 70.94 which is slightly above the average of 68.