Integrating Social Media into SAR Workflows
Class Project (Group of 4) UX Research
Class: Innovation in Disaster Response, Resilience & Recovery [IDR3] (DEV ENG 290, UC Berkeley)
Timeline: January 2022- May 2022
Process: Meetings with sponsors to familiarize with problem, user interviews with stakeholders to uncover unknowns, reframe problem scope multiple times, synthesize key themes and pain points, create user journeys and storyboards, prototype app
IDR3 is a class centered on semester-long projects where teams collaborate with clients from the U.S. Army to solve issues related to disaster response, resilience and recovery using human-centered design methods. Our team worked closely with the U.S. Coast Guard in Houston-Galveston, Texas to design a way to integrate social media information into decision making in SAR teams during hurricane events. The project involved conducting 20+ interviews with various stakeholders including within the Coast Guard, medical response, and social media data research teams; and constantly reframing our problem space based on new information following each interview. The result is a proposed app ecosystem that funnels social media users during a disaster to a webpage where they can provide their location and essential information for rescue directly to a heat map portal accessible by SAR teams in the area.
Watch the video below to learn more or view the project Behance poster here.
Our sponsors’ proposed idea:
An app that would allow the Coast Guard to access a heat map of social media activity that would detect areas and buildings where SAR resources need to be allocated.
Major roadblock uncovered from research:
Under the national SAR code, the U.S. Coast Guard does not lead SAR operations in non-maritime zones (e.g. city streets - even if flooded) during catastrophic incidents. This is the duty of the local officials such as city, county or state officials and the Coast Guard only serves as an aide.
As a result, our project focused on creating an online map where all responders, including local and the Coast Guard, can access location information that is provided with consent by individual members of the public through a Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA), which is what Amber Alerts use, or through social media apps on their mobile phones. Our app prototype focused on a maritime scenario where the Coast Guard can lead SAR operations.
Other research findings justifying our end deliverable:
1. Location geotags from social media posts are vague (~100m radius) hence are not useful for tracking in SAR situations – thus direct GPS information consented by individuals are required
2. Some people may have WEA disabled on their phones - thus an alternative way to access location consent page is provided through social media
3. The Coast Guard has relatively limited budget and labor in comparison to the rest of the U.S. Army with officers taking upon multiple roles - thus our solution could not involve having to hire an additional person to scour social media for important information
Key Contributions
1. Conducted 10+ interviews with members of the Coast Guard and other relevant stakeholders in the SAR and GIS space.
2. Lead team conversations that helped us reframe our problem and focus on the root of the problem space e.g. bringing our focus back to the national maritime code preventing the USCG from leading CISAR.
3. Edited a video for our final presentation summarizing the journey of our research and design process.