Innovative UX design idea for a natural disaster alarm app

for smart watch and mobile

ROLE: UX-researcher/writer/designer - part of Google UX Design Certificate Course, 2021

RESPONSIBILITIES: concept and user research, wireframing, prototyping, usability study, mockups

PROJECT VISION

This project is part of Google's certificate program and is intended to provide cross-platform experiences for social benefit. Immediately, an early warning app for natural disasters came to mind. This was especially important to me because part of my family lives in a country that is heavily affected by natural disasters such as earthquakes and ash fall from volcanoes. Therefore, my goal was:

To offer a cell phone and smartwatch app that provides timely warnings of hazards and allows users to call for help.

Although the use of smartwatches is not yet widespread in developing countries that are often affected by natural disasters, even a single person wearing a smartwatch could save several people by quickly and accurately transmitting their location.

CHALLENGES

The biggest challenge was to boil the idea down to a smartwatch format. I wanted all the important features to be available in the smartwatch version, but as intuitive, clear and appealing as possible.

Also, natural disasters are associated with anxiety and fear, which I tried to avoid through the UI design. Animations should make the touch and feel less of a "disaster". The color scheme used is meant to emphasize meaning but not convey fear.

Interaction with the app should be as pleasant and beautiful as possible.

Also, the app is supposed to update the disaster status of various places so that people can track the well-being of their beloved ones.

IMPACT: In fact, there is a very interesting research about the use of smartwatches for tracking disasters and rescuing people: “Integration of smart watch and Geographic Information System (GIS) to identify post-earthquake critical rescue area part. I. Development of the system” . The use of the smartwatch as an early warning system is a big topic and will receive more and more attention in the future - when more people use smartwatches.

THE DESIGN PROCESS

Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test

RESEARCH

I interviewed my family and relatives and additionally researched on the internet. It was very interesting to listen to people who have a lot of experience in dealing with natural disasters and how they usually find out about them. Also, there are already some apps on the market and it was interesting to study them as well and improve on their results and ratings.

“I always inform myself in a public chat within _a well-known app_, but I see the advantages of using a smartwatch in future.”

"I would like to know about earthquakes at different locations since my family lives somewhere else.”

“”

Access to smart devices difficult

Natural Disasters often occur within poor countries, which makes the usage of i.e. smartwatches difficult. An app for both mobile and smartwatch might be a good approach.

Meaning of Information

Often, information provided is not fully accessible. For instance, the magnitude of an earthquake does not mean to much without the information about its depth.

Information without horror scenarios

The topic of natural disasters is a difficult one, as it can sometimes have catastrophic effects. Being informed means reading about disasters again and again. It would be appreciated if the information was formulated in a neutral way.

TARGET USER

IDEATION

During my ideation phase I used for instance crazy8 method to come up with different ideas. I focused on 'smartwatch first' - from small device to larger device to boil down all my ideas to the most important parts. I quickly had some ideas in mind:

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WIREFRAMING

A smartwatch is such a small device that I needed to find ways to make it easy to use and informative enough at the same time.
Here is a screen informing about a natural disaster displayed on the background map.

USABILITY STUDY I

4 participants were asked to perform tasks in a high-fidelity prototype. I wanted to find out if the flow is intuitive and selfexplaining.

Text to small

The font size is to small to be easily read.

More information

Users would like to know more about current disasters and provide feedback if they sensed it themselves.

Option to share location

Users want to determine whether or not they share their location - not just when something happens.

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Information card about natural disaster with improved font size and styling

For a smartwatch the selected font size was too small. Therefore, I implemented a vertical flow within the info card, which can be scrolled up and down through touch to get all information on "time", "depth", "distance" and "sensed by".

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Users wished to receive more information about the individual disaster.

Therefore, clicking on the info card expands it and provides more information about the natural disaster and circumstances. In addition, a feedback option (felt? yes/no) has been integrated.

Enlarged card for improved information on natural disaster with feedback option on smartwatch

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A smartwatch can be especially useful for sending an alert in an emergency.

Therefore, I have integrated a possibility to share the users' location.

In addition, some adjustments have been made to ensure a logic and user-friendly functionality.

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Smartwatch vs Mobile: The functions of the smartwatch app are simpler compared to the functions of the mobile app. Within the mobile app an overview - a timeline - about recent natural disasters is shown. Within the mobile app a user can also search for specific disasters or locations.

Natural Disaster Overview on Mobile Device

Although the pink background should make the information clearly visible, it turned out that the touch and feel of MOVIDA as shown on the right side are better implemented.

Moreover, users wanted important disasters to stand out more. Therefore, a discreetly placed pink shadow and border was implemented.

In order to provide an overview and sufficient information at the same time, the user can swipe over the various information messages to extend them downwards.

DESIGN KIT

PROTOTYPE - WORK FLOW

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REFLECTION

I had a lot of fun designing a cross-plattform experience while thinking of a useful way of integrating an early warning system. I was inspired by my family and relatives a lot and enjoyed thinking about how the next billion users tackle disasters with smart devices - and I am convinced that there is a lot of potential. Just as one small incentive: there is research on geo-tracking animals like goats for activity-tracking of volcanos (ICARUS project). The behavior of the goats can be used to determine how likely an outbreak is. Therefore, the idea is to use goat as early warning systems. It might sound crazy, but I think it is incredibly interesting and helps to think out of the box.

It was very interesting to gain insight and new perspectives from people sharing their struggle with natural disasters. Future work: in addition to iterating my design and gaining more insights from further usability studies, I see integrating more natural disasters such as landslides, plagues and epidemics (insects, diseases) will improve the user experience.