The importance of User Experience during Incidents
At different stages of our lives, we’re all called to initiate, be a part of or manage emergency response activities in our lives. We have all somehow experienced this since March 2020 as we had to engage with managing the spread of a global pandemic.
As a product designer, I have been engaged in creating and designing several products but only recently I have invested time in understanding how design methodologies and patterns can be implemented to potentially save lives.
My partners Morgan Rees and Tim Grant, who have been working in managing emergency solutions for over 20 years described to me that the single factor that determines the overall success or failure during an emergency situation is: attention to the user engagement (i.e. user experience) and clarity of user information.
To explain, let’s understand some definitions:
Emergency Management — “Emergency management is the managerial function charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters.”
User experience — “User experience (UX) is a person’s emotions and attitudes about using a particular product, system, or service.”
I believe that emergency management should also include “leading the community through the incident”, and also believe that UX is not just about how people interact with products, systems, or services; but also how people interact with data and information.
When we started industrium, during the discovery phase, we read and investigated many public recorded emergency situations and it became clear that in many cases the conversations were not going anywhere and precious minutes and possibly lives were lost because the interface for responding to an incident was inadequate.
Now, what if the users in an emergency situation had a mobile application accessible at any time with big, clear and easy steps to define the incident and response in a minute or less. This application could reach a number of stakeholders and deliver different information about the incident depending on their role. And what if during the time of the incident we could track different stages of the incident where the App itself powered by smart AI and Machine learning could suggest with a concise and clear user interface the steps to be taken by all the players involved in managing an incident?
Please welcome Respnse.io
Respnse.io is an emergency preparedness and planning application built upon a smart software decision-engine particularly focused on heavy industry and critical logistics. Respnse.io gives users a convenient and simple way to summon, manage and track every aspect of emergency and incident response and in real-time provide response solutions for the situations they are most likely to encounter in their operations at the speed of light using our decision-engines to meet and exceed regulatory requirements to protect their people, the public and the environment.
Our in-depth analysis and research shows that every type of incident has key common denominators in terms of actions to be taken and events to be tracked. By starting our design thinking by mapping the user flow that these incidents produce resulted in us being able to build a smart automated decision engine that dramatically improves decision making and incorporates variables which normally are difficult for a human to parse and deal with quickly. Our design interface is then build using best in class UI and UX to ensure data is captured and delivered in the most simple and effective way to ensure the right information is used and understood by operators.
If you’re interested in our product we can show you more like the interactive mapping system or the comprehensive AI-powered suggestions and notification system that enables us to identify and track all events and actors of a given incident.
The key to success in emergency management, whether driven by a cybersecurity incident or a global pandemic, is for the actions that drive the goals of the emergency plan to be executed in a coordinated, effective, and efficient manner.
If people responsible for or impacted by these actions are angry, scared, confused, and worried, their survival instincts will kick in, and the result is individuals acting in selfish and counterproductive ways.
When the stakes are high, and the plan calls for people to be calm, collected, and execute critical tasks, forgoing investment in user experience is sure to cost customers.
You can find out more about the intelligent technologies industrium are pioneering for operational decision-making here. You can also get in touch.
