DOI: 10.17603/ds2-ydmk-q397
title: HTI Interview Stimuli
title: in Evaluation of hurricane threats and impacts visualizations through interviews with broadcast meteorologists and emergency managers

description: The overall goal of this project was to improve the National Weather Service's (NWS) Hurricane Threats and Impacts (HTI) visualizations through a user-driven, iterative design process, in order to improve risk communication and decision-making during multi-hazard tropical cyclone events. The component of the project documented here focused on evaluating a prototype redesign of the NWS HTI graphics with broadcast meteorologists and emergency managers in hurricane-prone regions. The prototype was co-developed with our research partners at the University of Miami based on initial feedback from members of the public, as well as best practices in visual design and the various disciplinary expertise of our research team. We conducted 20 interviews in total - 10 with broadcast meteorologists and 10 with emergency managers. The interviewees were recruited based on variability in several dimensions, including how long they’ve worked in their hurricane-related job roles and characteristics of the areas they served (e.g., coastal vs. inland, urban vs. rural, local vs. regional). Interviewees were first asked about their perspectives on the current NWS HTI graphics (at the time of the interviews), including their uses, interpretations, and feedback for improvement. They were then shown the prototype redesigned HTI graphic and were again asked about their overall interpretations, likes and dislikes, potential uses, and needs and constraints that would need to be addressed to facilitate their use of the graphic. This repository includes the semi-structured interview protocol and stimuli used during our interviews, as well as a guide for how we de-identified interview transcripts to protect interviewee confidentiality.
description: This document includes the stimuli shown to participants, for both the current NWS HTI graphics (at the time of interviews) and the prototype HTI visualizations developed by our research team. Examples of current NWS HTI graphics are shown on pages 1-3. The first example (on page 1) includes a composite of the wind, storm surge, and flooding rain threats for Hurricane Ian as accessed from weather.gov/srh/tropical. Page 2 shows an example of HTI information packaged in an infographic created by the NWS Ruskin / Tampa Bay Weather Forecast Office, again for Hurricane Ian; this example includes wind, storm surge, flooding rain, and tornado threats. Page 3 displays both examples together. The two examples were selected to represent different ways that participants may have seen current HTI visualizations from the NWS. Participants were shown all three pages. 

The example prototype HTI visualizations presented to participants are shown on pages 4-6. Each example visualizes the same data, described as the threat posed by a hypothetical “Hurricane Barbara”; however, the threat information was derived from real-world data from Hurricane Irma. The first example (on page 4) uses a hazard categorization scheme with four levels: slight, moderate, high, and extreme. Page 5 and page 6 present the same prototype visual, but with three threat levels rather than four levels. The example on page 5 labels the three levels slight, moderate, and high, and the example on page 6 labels the three levels moderate, high, and extreme. The three examples were selected to explore two topics of interest in the interviews (number of threat categories and labels for those categories) based on previous and concurrent research in the broader project. All participants saw the visual on page 4. Pages 5 and 6 were only shown to participants if they specifically mentioned what the prototype graphic might look like with a different categorization scheme.