NextGen TV and Advanced Emergency Alerting: The Future of TV Warnings and Alerts

The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) is introducing a new broadcast signal (ATSC 3.0), also called NextGen TV, that utilizes technology that can offer better-quality audio and video, a more user-focused experience including rich-format graphics, and location-based services. These technological advancements have great utility for improving the way weather warnings and other alerts are consumed by the public. To best utilize this opportunity, social scientists must work alongside broadcast professionals to assure that warning and alert information is displayed in a way that is user centric, targeted, and informative, while excluding extraneous information. This article outlines the importance of bringing together an interdisciplinary team from the academic, private, and government sectors to accomplish this goal. The team draws on literature on cognitive psychology, user interaction, and visual communication to show how the organization and presentation of risk information in a noisy environment can facilitate or impede effective decision-making. Preliminary analyses of current weather warning and information displays have shown variability between local and national networks. Future work using eye-tracking experiments and focus groups will be used to observe human interactions with various existing and proposed warning information displays is described. This research is the first step in designing effective warning systems that consider human behavior in addition to technology to utilize the full potential of NextGen TV.