Designing an Application for Social Media Needs in Emergency Public Information Work

Abstract

Emergency responders increasingly use social media as a means to monitor public information, gather information that could be used in response efforts, and communicate important information during emergency events. However, the adoption of social media into emergency management processes poses socio-technical challenges such as issues of credibility and trust, lack of organizational support, poor tools, and a shortage of resources and training. This study designs, implements, and evaluates an application that supports the work practice of emergency public information officers and their need to gather, monitor, sort, and report social media activity. Based on prior work that examines how social media and the forms of public participation enabled by it are changing public information practice, we iteratively design and evaluate application prototypes using a human-centered process--moving from low-fidelity paper prototypes to a high-fidelity digital prototype that is ready for field use.