Terrorist Attacks Now Challenge Better Crisis Response

New research now points to tumultuous periods of natural disasters, terrorist events, and other crises as spurring on the rapid creation and transformation of information and communication technology tools.

In “Designing for Disaster: Social Software Use in Times of Crisis”, an article from the International Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development (Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Elayne Coakes, University of Westminster, UK), part of the InfoSci-Journals database collection, researcher Dr. Liza Potts, Old Dominion University, USA proposes a sociotechnical approach for improving systems and user interfaces based on disaster scenarios.

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"...leveraging the actors and ecosystems...this could reduce the anxiety and chaos that inevitably follow a disaster"

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“Images, systems, participants, cell phones, websites, etc. have the potential to provide relevant data that could be better coordinated if a system were in place to gather this information and distribute it to those in need, either of emergency services, or connecting the missing with the found,” writes Potts.  “By leveraging the actors and ecosystems that already exist, designers can foster the free flow of information through these systems, and this could reduce the anxiety and chaos that inevitably follow a disaster.”

Potts believes that the actor network theory (ANT) should be extended to allow for the prioritization of human needs and that by better understanding crisis experiences, designers will be empowered to create systems that are far more inclusive, operate across numerous networks, and enable everyday people to communicate during times of disaster.

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