Toward a User-Centered Design of a Weather Forecasting Decision-Support Tool

Abstract

Hazard Services is a software toolkit that integrates information management, hazard alerting, and communication functions into a single user interface. When complete, National Weather Service forecasters across the United States will use Hazard Services for operational issuance of weather and hydrologic alerts, making the system an instrumental part of the threat management process. As a new decision-support tool, incorporating an understanding of user requirements and behavior is an important part of building a system that is usable, allowing users to perform work-related tasks efficiently and effectively. This paper discusses the Hazard Services system and findings from a usability evaluation with a sample of end users. Usability evaluations are frequently used to support software and website development and can provide feedback on a system’s efficiency of use, effectiveness, and learnability. In the present study, a user-testing evaluation assessed task performance in terms of error rates, error types, response time, and subjective feedback from a questionnaire. A series of design recommendations was developed based on the evaluation’s findings. The recommendations not only further the design of Hazard Services, but they may also inform the designs of other decision-support tools used in weather and hydrologic forecasting. Incorporating usability evaluation into the iterative design of decision-support tools, such as Hazard Services, can improve system efficiency, effectiveness, and user experience.

Environmental Hazards: A Coverage Response Approach

“…Thus the use of localized information (e.g., landscape, infrastructure, land use, food supply, and transportation or fuel systems) according to deterministic values (i.e., quantity, quality, robustness, critical values, and more) that change in time and space and in response to societal interactions could be layered into urban and suburban areas to depict changes as a function of Smart System data and information. This is similar to constructs examining city heat amplification by factor separation [111] and the FACETS Paradigm approach in weather forecasting that employs probabilistic and forecast information [112,113] for direct application by various user communities.…”

Pengembangan Sistem Informasi Manajemen Laboratorium Berbasis Paradigma Pengguna (Studi Kasus: Fakultas Teknik Universitas Bengkulu)

“…Pengujian sistem dengan data dan untuk memperoleh tanggapan dari pengguna, menguji dan meminimalkan kesalahan yang mungkin dilakukan pengguna (error handling), dan pengujian perspektif dari pengguna melalui usability testing [10].…”

“…Untuk item bernomor ganjil (1,3,5,7,9), skor kontribusinya yaitu nilai dari item tersebut dikurangi 1. Sedangkan untuk item bernomor genap (2,4,6,8,10), skor kontribusinya adalah 5 dikurangi nilai item. Keluaran dari SUS berupa skor antara 0 sampai dengan 100 [17].…”

The Ensemble Framework For Flash Flood Forecasting (EF5) v1.2: description and case study

“…In the United States, floods and flash floods are the seconddeadliest weather phenomena behind heat (Ashley and Ashley, 2008). Flash flood fatalities have previously been found to account for 80-90 % of all flood fatalities.…”

“…In both experiments, the hydrologic products presented here received favorable reviews. These hydrologic products have been used for experiments with automation in the warning decision process by recommending locations for possible flash flood warnings (Argyle et al, 2017). This paper will provide a review of existing hydrologic models, document the hydrologic models used in EF5, and demonstrate the performance of the hydrologic simulations with a multi-year case study over the United States.…”