Visualizing Heat Risk: Infographics, Memorability, and Design

Communicating risk through public-facing formats like infographics is important in technical communication. Grounding our work in a collection of infographics about extreme heat risk, we argue that understanding attention and memory can help communicators make more effective design choices. This study combined eye tracking with memorability data to determine (a) what elements of infographics (text, visuals) drew attention and (b) what participants found memorable about heat risk communication. Results from our exploratory research found that student designer and community participants (1) spent less time reviewing the bottom quarter of infographics and (2) spent the majority of their time reading text but remembered visual and textual elements equally.