Writing out the Storm: Designing and Evaluating Tools for Weather Risk Messaging

Abstract

Communicating risk to the public in the lead-up to and during severe weather events has the potential to reduce the impacts of these events on lives and property. Globally, these events are anticipated to increase due to climate change, rendering effective risk communication an integral component of climate adaptation policies. Research in risk communications literature has developed substantial knowledge and best practices for the design of risk messaging. This study considers the potential for quantifying the compliance of severe weather risk messages with these best practices, individually and at scale, and developing tools to improve risk communication messaging. The current work makes two contributions. First, we develop a string-matching approach to evaluate whether messaging complies with best practices and suggest areas for improvement. Second, we conduct an interview study with risk communication professionals to inform the design space of authoring tools and other technologies to support severe weather risk communicators.