AmbientNEWS: Augmenting Information Discovery in Complex Settings through Aesthetic Design

Nowadays professional journalists create and edit broadcasting materials inside newsrooms that are characterized by an intense and multivariate flux of information. Within these settings, the journalists have difficulties keeping up with the evolving geopolitical picture of events developing in the world and how it relates to the topics of their interest. In this paper we present AmbientNEWS, an ambient display that visualizes dynamic news content and informs professional journalists on the global picture of events. We argue that the conceptualization and design of its information aesthetics criteria can be grounded in user requirements, and subsequently engaged to augment the awareness of professionals in an environment that is highly crowded with information. We also discuss the evaluation process of ambient information visualization with a focus on aesthetic design aspects. We conclude by summarizing our findings and discuss future work.