Patterns for Communicating Numerical Uncertainty

Uncertainty is an inherent property of all measurements, statistics, or generally all communication involving numbers. Whenever numerical data is communicated, the uncertainty or confidence in this data should also be included. Neglecting it, or communicating it in an ambiguous way, leads to misinterpretation and misunderstandings. There are some well-known and proven patterns to avoid such problems. In this paper we present a collection of patterns for the communication of numerical uncertainty. These patterns revolve around three areas of applications: textual, numerical, and graphical. For numerical representations the pattern Numbers with Uncertainties is shown. For textual descriptions Words of Estimative Probability, Numeric Hedge Words and Quantitative Comparisons are explained, and for graphical visualization Error Indicator and Distribution Plots are described. The paper is targeted towards communicators, visualizers, reporters, as well as developers, engineers, and researchers of solutions for problems which involve uncertainty.