CICIS: Connecting with Citizens During Emergency Situations

Engaging and involving citizens during emergencies are among the most critical activities that the work being undertaken in Work Package 8 is focusing on (please see our first blog post on CICIS for an overview over the work in the work package). In the initial phase of our development work, we are hence focusing on the development of the technical means through which we can connect with citizens during emergency situations including a mobile interacting with a dedicated server that collects data provided by citizens and that will provide information and guidance to them during emergencies.

While the system backend is based on an existing system (the Innova Participation Platform for citizen engagement), we are developing a new custom mobile app for citizens to use during emergencies that will be tailored to the unique constraints and high-stress usage environments in which the app is expected to be used by citizens.

Our work focuses both on the technical backend development and modifications needed for use of the Participation Platform in TeamAware and on the development of initial mobile app user interface prototypes that we can share with our end user partners for iterative review and improvement of the way in which citizens can be engaged during emergency situations for their protection as well as for providing useful information to first responders.

The figure below shows a few early example screens from prototype development of the mobile app being prototyped for use in TeamAware for providing information on a fire. These examples also illustrate our aim to create visual prototypes early on in order to improve the app user interface. For instance, the next iteration of the middle screen in the examples below was further simplified by replacing the slider meant for providing information on the size of a fire as it was found to be too difficult for citizens to provide such information via a slider.

The development of the mobile app for citizens will continue throughout the technical development phase of the project, and the app will be tested in the field testing and validation exercises of the project. In future blog posts, we will describe how other components developed in Work Package 8 of TeamAware will integrate with the app.