Redrawing Risks: How Professional Users Interpret and Use an Iteratively Redesigned Hurricane Threats and Impacts Graphic

The National Weather Service and other weather industry partners increasingly use Hurricane Threats and Impacts (HTI) graphics to communicate the breadth of hazards and impacts associated with tropical cyclones. However, HTI graphics are often poorly designed and difficult to access, inhibiting their wider use during high-impact tropical cyclone events. In this study, we evaluated HTI graphics with broadcast meteorologists and emergency managers to understand how these professional users use and access HTI information. Additionally, we examine how these users perceive and use a prototype redesigned HTI graphic, created by our research team as part of a novel user-driven iterative design process that incorporates feedback from numerous stakeholders, best practices in visual design, and our team’s various interdisciplinary expertise. We demonstrate that professional users find HTI usable and actionable for their decision-making during tropical threats. Further, we find that these users appreciated the prototype redesigned HTI intuitively for its more “modern” feel, ease of use, and broader accessibility. However, these professional users also disagreed over aspects of the prototype HTI graphic’s design, such as the colors used, hazards represented, and the amount of text included in the graphic, suggesting that there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to designing effective tropical cyclone risk visualizations. We thus suggest continued investment in user-driven iterative design approaches to understand and meet the needs of the weather industry’s various stakeholders when developing new or existing graphical products.