RESEARCH FOCUS
Among the myriad of factors affecting vulnerability to extreme weather events such as hurricanes, relatively little attention
has been paid to the communication of risk and uncertainty. Having a better understanding of the risks associated with a hurricane
will improve the chances of saving lives and mitigating property and economic losses.
Our goal is to design an information provision system that communicates the minimal critical pieces of information to the maximum number
of people from diverse backgrounds.
PUBLICATIONS
This article provide a review framework for understanding hurricane risk communications and
emphasizes the need for more personalized hurricane risk information systems that take into account cultural,
geographical, linguistic, and economic circumstances. This short article appears in BAMS’ Paper of Note section.
Millet, B., Carter, A., Broad, K., Cairo, A., Evans, S., & Majumdar, S. (2020). Use of Visualization and Behavioral Science Concepts in Hurricane Forecast Communications.
Paper of Note. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 101 (1), 17-18.
This paper is a cross-disciplinary and critical review of hurricane risk communication development, focused on 1) research concerning visual communications and
the way in which individuals process, understand, and make decisions regarding them and 2) the way in which vulnerable communities understand and interact with
hurricane warning communications.
Millet, B., Carter, A. P., Broad, K., Cairo, A., Evans, S. D., & Majumdar, S. J. (2020). Hurricane Risk Communication:
Visualization and Behavioral Science Concepts. Weather, Climate, and Society, 12(2), 193–211.
Reading a visualization is often an experience mediated by people other than designers themselves. This article explains the role of
mediators such as journalists and scientists.
Cairo, A. (2020). If Anything on This Graphic Causes Confusion, Discard the Entire Product.
IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 40(2), 91–97.
This research explores diffusion of forecast messages on social media for Hurricane Dorian (2019) to understand how hurricane risk information is created, disseminated, and discussed in many-to-many
communication modes. We collected streams of posts from professional Twitter accounts, conducted a descriptive statistical analysis of manually-coded tweets to identify hurricane risk message types,
performed a network analysis to audit engagement among different types of accounts, and calculated sentiment scores to examine message opinions.
Ma, Q., & Millet, B. (2020). Analyzing Dorian Twitter data to understand how hurricane risk communication changes as threats unfold.
IEEE Visualization for Communication Workshop. Online. October 25-26, 2020.
The Track Forecast Cone, commonly known as the “cone of uncertainty”, is the most popular hurricane and tropical storm forecast product that the
National Hurricane Center produces. However, it is often misinterpreted by non-experts. In this study we first explored the most common misconceptions
about the cone and produced two alternative redesigns that we expected to be more attractive to and easier to understand by non-expert readers. Our results were mixed,
but reveal promising paths for future efforts.
Millet, B., Cairo, A., Majumdar, S., *Diaz, C., Evans, S., & Broad, K. (2020). Beautiful Visualizations Slain by Ugly Facts: Redesigning the National Hurricane Center’s ‘Cone of Uncertainty’ Map.
IEEE Visualization for Communication Workshop. Online. October 25-26, 2020.
This systematic review investigates design attributes that influence the expression of uncertainty visualization in weather forecasts, revealing six categories of design
features that can inform how viewers interpret the uncertainty conveyed in weather forecast displays. These design features also provide us with an initial basis for developing guidelines.
Ding, Q., and Millet, B. (2020). Visualizing Uncertainty in Weather Forecasts. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting,
Chicago, IL, October 5-9, 2020.
This talk describes research activities conducted by the Hurakan team including literature review, focus groups, surveys, and lab experiments to address challenges in
visually communicating hurricane risks and potential threats.
Majumdar, S. J., B. Millet, K. Broad, A. Cairo, S. Evans, B. McNoldy, (2020). Graphical Hurricane Risk Communication for Vulnerable Populations. 34th Conference on Hurricanes
and Tropical Meteorology, American Meteorological Society, New Orleans, LA, May 10-15, 2020.
This talk describes findings from our research about misinterpretations when using the National Hurricane Center’s “Cone of Uncertainty” graphic.
Majumdar, S. J., B. Millet, K. Broad, A. Cairo and S. Evans, (2020). Improving Hurricane Risk Communication for Vulnerable Populations.
15th Symposium on Societal Applications: Policy, Research and Practice. American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, 13-16 January 2020.