Our November 2023 essay is “Hurricane Forecast Products Need a UX Makeover,” by Barbara Millet. The essay describes problems people have interpreting current graphical representations of hurricane forecasts and Millet’s research conducted to improve graphics’ effectiveness.
In addition to the essay, this issue includes two research papers. One is on the use of remote usability testing during the pandemic, and the other is on different ways to collect zero responses in surveys.
The first article is “Remote UX Research in Unpredictable Times: Takeaways from Early Pandemic Practices,” by Semih Danış, Gülşen T. Yargın, and Sedef Süner-Pla-Cerdà. The authors investigated the early practices of UX managers, designers, and researchers in Turkey during the first 6 months of the global pandemic to understand how they responded to uncertainty by customizing their methods.
The second article is “Nothing Matters: Design Testing for Reporting Zero in a Web Survey,” by Anthony J. Schulzetenberg, Rachel T. Horwitz, Jonathan M. Katz, and Mary C. Davis. The authors describe an experiment comparing the effect on data quality and user experience for different ways that survey respondents can report zero on a web survey: a None box, instructing respondents to enter “0” if they have nothing to report, and asking a Yes/No filter question before asking for a quantity.
