Tan et al. Enhancing disaster app usability using user feedback Enhancing the usability of a disaster app: exploring the perspectives of the public as users Marion Lara Tan Raj Prasanna Kristin Stock Massey University Massey University Massey University
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Emma Hudson-Doyle Graham Leonard David Johnston Massey University GNS Science Massey University
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT Limited research has studied how citizens’ perspectives as end-users can contribute to improving the usability of disaster apps. This study addresses this gap by exploring end-user insights with the use of a conceptual disaster app in the New Zealand (NZ) context. NZ has multiple public alerting authorities that have various technological options in delivering information to the population’s mobile devices; including social media platforms, apps, as well as the Emergency Mobile Alert system. However, during critical events, the multiplicity of information may become overwhelming. A disaster app, conceptualised in the NZ context, aims to aggregate, organise, and deliver information from official sources to the public. After the initial conceptual design, a usability inquiry was administered by interviewing members of the public. Partial results of the inquiry show that the public’s perspective has value; in the process of understanding the new user’s viewpoint, usability highlights and issues are identified. Keywords Usability inquiry, mobile application, disaster, alerts, public perspective INTRODUCTION Multiple apps exist to prepare and warn the public for disaster events.