FDRI is developing a series of data and digital products. The interfaces to these products need to meet the requirements of a number of user communities: UK hydrological researchers, UK hydrological consultants, and other technical experts in organisations that span UK and devolved Governments and their agencies.
Two identical online, interactive workshops were held to understand user needs for finding and accessing data, focussed on five types of digital interface.
Across the two workshops we had 15 external participants, six additional UKCEH participants, as well as contributions from eight UKCEH colleagues who worked directly on FDRI.
The digital interface types for which feedback was sought were: general data discovery, data catalogues, spatial and time series graphical interfaces, APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), and analytical platforms.
Some of the key findings/points were:
- Participants identified the need to programmatically access data as particularly important.
- Interactive spatial and time series interfaces and APIs were the most important interface types, with less interest in general data discovery pages and analytical platforms.
- General priorities for interactive interfaces included the need to be intuitive, quick to use, and to support downloading of data.
- Detailed feedback on API priorities was provided, including the need for simple and unrestricted APIs with clear documentation, worked examples, tools to build queries, and environments to test them.
There was an interest from participants in joining digital user groups, which will enable potential users and early adopters of FDRI interfaces to provide further detailed feedback on outputs as they are developed. These groups will be set up and run from Autumn 2025.