Weekly Update: Second round of interviews completed. We talked with with users, hospital staff, and the hospital IT department. The prototype is up and running after user testing and the team is now moving forward with implementation. The team's video demo is complete and being incorporated into the final video. Shout-out to Evan and Nick for keeping things running smoothly!
3 years ago
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Allison Chen -
Thanks for the update William! And thanks Evan and Nick for your hard work. :D
Great job speaking with users, hospital staff, and the hospital IT department. Make sure to incorporate their feedback to further iterate and improve your prototype to move forward with implementation. What did they think about the concept? Did they use it the way you envisioned? Were they confused or annoyed by anything? All of their interactions and opinions will help make the prototype really meet their needs.
As a reminder, your final video is due next Monday, April 4. Use this as an opportunity to tell the story in a way that will help us empathize with your users and understand your concept and how it meets their needs. We are also interested in meeting the users, community members, and team members through the video to get an idea of the network of people you've built at Oklahoma.
Looking ahead to the final round, your leadership team will have a video call with DFA National, during which one of the topics you'll discuss is the wrapping up and/or continuation of your project. So think about your strategy for implementation and how to explain it.
Very excited to see your video, and good luck this week!
Weekly Update:
The inspiration for our solution came from an idea that was somewhat sidelined during the workshop but that we'd been mulling over for a quite while beforehand. How can we help professional rescue workers coordinate volunteers willing to help during a disaster? I first identified this problem years ago, when, after viewing the destruction of a local tornado on TV, I asked my parents "What can we do to help?" and they responded with the honest answer "I don't know". Now, years later, we think we may have a solution to this issue. After evaluating several other potential prototypes ranging from drones to wristbands, we've decided on a system that we think is robust, yet elegantly simple. The idea is to create an opt-in system, where emergency dispatch can send out text notifications with relevant information to a useful demographic. For example, a message could be sent out to anyone in the database with first-aid experience to meet at a specific location to help with injury reports. One of the biggest advantages of this solution is that it partially repurposes another system that Evan and Nick have been working on called patient alert, allowing us to create a functional prototype with relative ease. We now have a basic database set up, and we are looking into services that will allow us to send notifications based on information in that database. Our next step is to meet with our community partner again to reapply the design process to the sub-problems in our system (How can we get people with information to remember to send it to people without it? How can we let emergency responders know who has been trained in first-aid once they've arrived on the scene? etc.) and implement the solutions that we come up with.
Your personal story definitely has a powerful message! The insight that I'm getting from it is that people want to help in the cases of a natural disaster, but they're not sure how or where or when to help.
It's also great that you've considered other potential prototypes - how did you evaluate them before deciding on the text notification? Did you get user feedback on any of your other ideas? Always make sure to back up your decision-making by going back to your user and what they need.
It's great that you can repurpose the system that some of your team members have already built, if this allows you to quickly create a functional prototype then I suggest quickly prototyping or visualizing your other ideas to get feedback as well. According to a study at Stanford, parallel prototyping leads to better designs because you're less invested in one design and can iterate and consider alternatives. Maybe you design signage at key areas that help rescue workers geotag needs and call for help in that area, or a dashboard with live updates of what resources are needed where. Your text notification idea addresses your larger HCW, but make sure to explore other solutions before diving deep into the details and spending a lot of time on one prototype.
Nice questions for your community partner! Those seem like they can provide feedback the rescue workers can definitely provide. Keep your other user in mind as well - the volunteers. Ask questions like - is this easy to understand? Does this provide you with the information you need? How do you feel when you receive a notification like this? etc.
Looking forward to the next update. Let me know if you have any comments/questions.
