From User Needs to Design Choices: A Method for User-Centered Design of Natural Hazards Visualizations

Communicating natural hazards forecasts and models frequently relies on visual products such as charts, maps, and infographics. The framework of user-centered design can result in products that meet the needs of their users. While numerous methods exist for the elicitation of users’ needs, there are few published methods for how to translate user needs into concrete choices when designing visual products for natural hazards. We propose a two-step method for product designers to facilitate user-centered design for natural hazard products. First, we identify the key design elements (e.g., color scheme, labeling, data layers) and list the potential options for each one. Second, we make choices for each parameter based on elicited user needs, thus tracking explicitly which aspects of a product were designed to be user-centered. We demonstrate this method by prototyping several products showing forecasts for aftershocks after large earthquakes. We design user-centered graphics showing forecasted rates for aftershocks over time and by magnitude and several short-term hazard maps showing forecasted ground shaking. We posit that this method allows for systematic, structured, and delineated product design that makes (user-centered) product development more transparent, reproducible, and also transferable across hazards. We discuss practical implications in using such structured methods for designing user-centered hazard products.