Unlocking Potential: Analyzing the Content, Style, Structure, and Interactivity of Mesonets as Operational Dashboards

Abstract Emergency managers need data and information to make life-saving decisions on behalf of the public. Operational dashboards, if designed appropriately, can provide this information in a central location and reduce cognitive demands during decision-making. Mesonet websites can serve as a type of operational dashboard that has the potential to provide the meteorological data necessary for emergency managers to make decisions. In this study, we use quantitative content analysis to examine the content, style, structure, and interactivity of 18 Mesonet websites from across the contiguous United States. We find that Mesonet websites vary in the type and amount of content they include. For website style, we find that Mesonet websites primarily present their content with maps and data filters. We find that the structure of the website content was consistent across websites. Finally, we find that most Mesonet websites lacked interactivity, or visual feedback, which inhibits ease of use. We discuss extensions for future work. Significance Statement This study captures the content, style, structure, and interactivity of Mesonet websites when they are used as operational dashboards to support weather-related decision-making. Weather dashboards have the potential to support decision-makers of all types during severe weather events by providing all critical information in one place. With this streamlined approach, decision-making is made more efficient, as gathering information from multiple sources is no longer necessary. Mesonet dashboards provide a valuable context to analyze the content, style, and structure of webpages that can be useful for users. Through this work, we hope to identify the design principles and trends present in these dashboards, providing a basis for future research and efforts to improve design, user experience, and accessibility.