3 Seconds

Project

Three Seconds was a university project with an emphasis on design thinking to problem solving. Catherine Cooper from Auckland emergency management (AEM) , approached us with the theme of managing spontaneous volunteers. She and AEM believed they are in great need of addressing, and improve the services of AEM. She believed Auckland has been relatively ‘disaster-quiet’ with minor emergency events occurring occasionally. This has presented the issue of keeping residents informed and prepared in case of emergencies.

Goal

Reducing risk and increase resilience needed to exist across all AEM systems. The goal was to explore the needs and opportunities AEM could implement when managing spontaneous volunteers. Catherine wanted us to define the problem, introduce concepts and ideas to tackle the problem.

Process

Define - Discovery - Interpret - Ideate -
Design - Refine - Deliver.

Role

  • UX Researcher
  • Protyper

Team

  • Jolie Lam
  • Corban Stricklan
  • Giang Linh NP

Define

The defined phase was an opportunity for our team to get to know the brief. Our goal is to find the goals for the project and how they would want it presented. We came together with the information we've been giving from Catherin. We used design tools like assumption mapping to see what we knew and formed questions to define the problem.

Using assumption mapping tool, we found reducing risks and increasing resilience needed to occur across all of the environments, as they are all interconnected.

Challenge Statment

“How do we keep current volunteers engaged and prepared, in order to have a better response to a natural disaster?”

Discovery

Research plan

  • Case study
  • Observation
  • Interviews

Interview

We were able to interview four individuals that were heavily involved in emergency and Auckland volunteering. The strategy for the interview was to keep it broad on what they do, their experiences, task, and pain points. To help us gather more information, we conducted case studies on natural disasters. The goal for the case studies was to observe the public and their behaviour. We tried to capture words, movements, environment, and emotions.

Christchurch earthquake observation

Doing an observation of an emergency response allowed us to further empathise with our previous interviewees. From our observation, it was clear that the majority of people (locals and tourists) were disorientated, distraught and confused. This is likely due to the fact that they were overwhelmed with emotions that they found it difficult to process what was happening around them. There was a likelihood that they were not prepared and had no knowledge of what to do next (after a natural disaster).

Empathy map

Maslow hierarchy of needs

We ordered the information that we discovered by using empathy mapping tool. Using the Maslow hierarchy of need complemented this tool as it allowed us to give hierarchy on which were important/ more impact.

Themes

  • Safety of volunteers during a disaster.
  • Making the most of resources - allocating the right people and skills to the area needed.
  • Communication between community groups and Emergency Management Centers.
  • Educating the public on how to react during an emergency.

Insights

  • Prior to an emergency, establish a relationship between community groups and way of communication between them and their local EOC’s.
  • Volunteers well-being and awareness. Volunteers being prepared to be deployed and help.
  • Civilian often not aware on what to do during an emergency of natural disaster and there is a tendency for them to be a hero in those situations.
  • Create a system/method to better organised volunteers - be able to see the capacity/number of volunteers needed, skill sets, resources and transport these volunteers have available. With this information, volunteers can be sent to the right place that suits their level of skills - a better use of resources.
  • During an emergency, sustaining this communication system/relationship.

Opportunity statement

“How do we keep current Volunteers/ Community groups engaged in peacetime so they can effectively contribute when a natural disaster occurs?”

Brainstorm

Lotus blossom

Idea harvesting

Logo design by Corban Stricklan

3 Seconds

3 Seconds is a pop-up interactive exhibition. The nature of this pop-up event is to emphasise that a natural disaster can happen to anyone at anytime.

The idea is to cordon off a street with moderate-heavy foot traffic in the CBD. The street itself will look normal, however a phone will be handed over to them, to which AR technology unveils the aftermath of an earthquake, on the exact street they are standing on. The AR has trigger points, where a message will pop-up asking the participant to do something to help.

Prototype

Walk through simulation

Through a simulation, we fabricated the aftermath of an earthquake in a classroom, by creating different types of hazards. The user was handed a phone and asked to record and point out the hazards. The intention of this, was to find how users utilise the given device and also the necessity for the user to download an app.

Mock up simulation

To better communicate and visualise what the AR will look like and effect it will achieve. The natural environment in the background is depicting a normal street. However in the phone screen you can see that AR has been laid over the live environment, illustrating a calamity occurring.

A warning message will alert the user of an issue to which they respond to - and no answer is wrong. Once a response is locked in, a set of instructions is delivered to teach the user the correct procedures to follow if they were to deal with a real situation alike the one they faced through the app. Alongside the instructions, a video will show the user the result of their decision.

Kai Night

Reckon we should work together?

Phone: 021 159 8025

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Draftlab Digital 2020