Interacting With Human Simulations: A Prototype Application

The process of interacting and executing agent-based simulations of human phenomena is complex and difficult to follow for lay people. This is due to (1) limited access to computing power, (2) difficulty in writing analytics scripts and (3) the size and complexity of the simulation space. Consequently, agent-based simulations are normally used once to answer a limited set of questions instead of exploring all the potential paths that the model offers. Here, we describe an approach for developing user experiences that automate the analytic process and rely on interactive visualizations and life histories of societies and agents. This approach helps the user visualize simulation results, pin-point consequences of different initial conditions on the societies' evolution and agents' behavior, and ultimately allow the user to build a narrative or story-telling to present complex information. We present a prototype application that we implemented in the R language.