Journal of Business and Technical Communication Jul 2019

An Ethic of Constraint: Citizens, Sea-Level Rise Viewers, and the Limits of Agency

Daniel P. Richards Old Dominion University

Abstract

The design of online interactive visualizations is an ongoing area of research within technical communication, with recent work focusing on visualizations in risk-based contexts. This article shares the results of a large-scale user experience study on a popular interactive sea-level rise viewer aimed at facilitating decision making for individual users in coastal communities. Using this viewer, participants performed three major tasks related to individual property, community impacts, and future projections and gave feedback on the design, use value, and functionality of the tool. The participants were assessed on their ability to complete the three major tasks. The author discusses the implications of these results on the continued design of interactive risk visualizations and argues for a vision of user agency that is more constrained within the larger ethical paradigms of environmental communication.

Journal
Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Published
2019-07-01
DOI
10.1177/1050651919834983
CompPile
Open Access
Closed
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Cited by in this index (13)

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    Bridging the Gap Between Numbers and Experience: Identifying Community Risk Thr…
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  4. Kong (2025)
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  1. Pflugfelder et al. (2023)
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  2. Tillery et al. (2022)
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  3. Richards et al. (2022)
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  4. Altamirano et al. (2022)
    Experience report streamlining complex website design using a content audit sel…
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  5. Strantz (2021)
    Using Web Standards to Design Accessible Data Visualizations in Professional Co…
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    Visual Risk Literacy in “Flatten the Curve” COVID-19 Visualizations
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
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    Hybrid collectivity: hacking environmental risk visualization for the anthropocene
    Communication Design Quarterly
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    Story mapping and sea level rise: listening to global risks at street level
    Communication Design Quarterly

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