Week 9 Lab: Forecast UI comparison

A lab comparing how three real forecast interfaces represent uncertainty for the same underlying kind of prediction

29 April 2027

Before the lab#

Pick one forecasting domain — weather, sport, an election, a market — with at least three widely used interfaces you can access during the lab.

In the lab#

Capture the same forecast from each interface at roughly the same time, so you’re comparing representations of the same underlying prediction rather than three predictions that happen to differ. Then work through each one asking a fixed question: if this forecast is wrong, does the interface give you any way to have expected that in advance?

Group discussion ranks interfaces across different domains against each other — is a weather app’s single rain icon more or less honest than a poll tracker’s single percentage? The answer usually isn’t obvious, and defending a ranking out loud is most of the lab’s value.

Afterwards#

This is close to a rehearsal for Assignment 2, which is due at the end of next week. If your assignment topic overlaps with your lab topic, that’s fine — the assignment expects more depth and a broader set of interfaces than the lab did, not a different domain.