Designing MultiModal Map-Based Interfaces for Disaster Management

Multi-touch interaction has become popular in recent years and impressive advances in technology have been demonstrated, with the presentation of digital maps as a common presentation scenario. However, most existing systems are really technology demonstrators and have not been designed with real applications in mind. A critical factor in the management of disaster situations is the access to current and reliable data. New sensors and data acquisition platforms (e.g. satellites, UAVs, mobile sensor networks) have improved the supply of spatial data tremendously. However, in many cases this data is not well integrated into current crisis management systems and the capabilities to analyze and use it lag behind sensor capabilities. Therefore, it is essential to develop techniques that allow the effective organization, use and management of heterogeneous data from a wide variety of data sources. Standard user interfaces are not well suited to provide this information to crisis managers....

2011

Multi-touch interaction has become popular in recent years and impressive advances in technology have been demonstrated, with the presentation of digital maps as a common presentation scenario. However, most existing systems are really technology demonstrators and have not been designed with user requirements in mind. This paper will report on ongoing activities in a user centred approach to the use of large multi-touch displays to support disaster managment applications. Building on the detailed analysis of user requirements in real-world tasks, the focus is on the design of presentation and interaction styles that exploit the potential of large scale multi-touch displays to reduce cognitive workload while monitoring the impacts on usability and ergonomics, including a study of the potential physiological dangers involved in long-term use.

In order to handle disasters, save human lives, and reduce damages, it is essential to have quick response times, good collaboration and coordination among the parties involved, as well as advanced techniques, resources, and infrastructure. The current response to disaster is inefficient and sometimes poorly organized. Various studies, research, and analyses have helped clarify needs, understand failures, and improve technology and organizational procedures. One of the major bottlenecks mentioned in many reports is communication between different parties involved in managing a disaster. The lack of a good overview of the locations of teams, personnel, and facilities or insufficient information about the tasks needing to be completed may lead to misunderstanding and errors. Many command and control systems have been developed to aid the decision-making process, but these systems generally require well-trained personnel. This chapter discusses a series of usability investigations completed on a new type of hardware called a ‘tangible table’ for sharing information and decision-making during emergency responses. The tangible table offers a simple user interface that can be manipulated with human fingers. The interface is intuitive and easy to understand and use. This chapter presents the technology and discusses the interface and the usability tests that have been carried out with different groups of users. The results of these tests show convincingly that the system is highly appropriate for a broad group of non-technical users.

2011

Abstract: In mass casualty incidents a common operation picture, which gives an overview about the current situation is critical information for managing the emergency. In order to support the collaboration between different incident commanders a multi-touch table, placed in the incident command post, is used to present the current operation picture on a map. To place as little additional mental load as possible on the users, any interaction with this map interface should be natural and intuitive.

Human-Computer Interaction …, 2011

The integration of user centred design activities into software engineering processes is a challenge. This is especially true for next-generation user interfaces that employ interface paradigms like mixed reality. Guidance for designers and developers has to address the integration of software engineering and user centred design on all levels from abstract standards to operational development. We analyze standards in software engineering and usability engineering and derive recommendations for integrated development processes. To support developers we propose the MVCE architecture as an extension of the common model-viewcontroller pattern to address the specific requirements of mixed reality interfaces through an additional environment component.

Sensors

Disasters and crises are inevitable in this world. In the aftermath of a disaster, a society’s overall growth, resources, and economy are greatly affected as they cause damages from minor to huge proportions. Around the world, countries are interested in improving their emergency decision-making. The institutions are paying attention to collecting different types of data related to crisis information from various resources, including social media, to improve their emergency response. Previous efforts have focused on collecting, extracting, and classifying crisis data from text, audio, video, or files; however, the development of user-friendly multimodal disaster data dashboards to support human-to-system interactions during an emergency response has received little attention. Our paper seeks to fill this gap by proposing usable designs of interactive dashboards to present multimodal disaster information. For this purpose, we first investigated social media data and metadata for the ...

International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management, 2006

Geospatial information systems (GIS) provide a central infrastructure for computer supported crisis management in terms of database, analytical models and visualization tools, but the user interfaces of such systems are still hard to use, and do not address the special needs of crisis managers who often work in teams and make judgments and decisions under stress. This paper articulates the overall challenges for effective GIS interfaces to support crisis management in three dimensions: immediacy, relevancy, and sharing. These three requirements are addressed by an integrated approach, taking a human-GIS interaction perspective. To demonstrate the feasibility of this approach, we cite our prototype system, DAVE_G (Dialogue-Assisted Visual Environment for Geoinformaton), as an example. DAVE_G uses a large screen display to create a shared workspace among team members, and allows risk managers to interact with a GIS through natural multimodal (speech/gesture) dialogues. This work highlights the design challenges and the required technical innovations towards the goal of making geographical information accessible to crisis management teams. . His dissertation research is focused on the development of a cognitive systems engineering approach to guide design of advanced human-computer interfaces that support collaborative actions with a GIS in emergency management situations. His long-term research interests are in the modeling of human cognitive processes and visual systems as it relates to the design of new interface technologies for geographical information.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2012

Ensuring a constant flow of information is essential for offering quick help in different types of disasters. In the following, we report on a workin-progress distributed, collaborative and tangible system for supporting crisis management. On one hand, field operators need devices that collect information-personal notes and sensor data-without interrupting their work. On the other hand, a disaster management system must operate in different scenarios and be available to people with different preferences, backgrounds and roles. Our work addresses these issues by introducing a multi-level collaborative system that manages real-time data flow and analysis for various rescue operators.

Proceedings of The IEEE, 2003

Emergency response requires strategic assessment of risks, decisions, and communications that are time critical while requiring teams of individuals to have fast access to large volumes of complex information and technologies that enable tightly coordinated work. The access to this information by crisis management teams in emergency operations centers can be facilitated through various human-computer interfaces. Unfortunately, these interfaces are hard to use, require extensive training, and often impede rather than support teamwork. Dialogue-enabled devices, based on natural, multimodal interfaces, have the potential of making a variety of information technology tools accessible during crisis manage-ment. This paper establishes the importance of multimodal interfaces in various aspects of crisis management and explores many issues in realizing successful speech-gesture driven, dialogue-enabled interfaces for crisis management.

i-com, 2017

When a hazard event strikes, the reachability of affected areas is a significant factor that can determine if the situation becomes a disaster. Decision makers have to react quickly while under stress to tasks that depend on the road network, such as management of relief operations, planning of evacuation routes, or food and first aid distribution. In this paper we present an approach for exploring and validating reachability of remote areas through visualization with an interactive tabletop and tablets. We propose a simple way to combine and visualize data from scientists and communities to provide insights into area reachability, as well as the likely impacts of future hazard events on access routes. Moreover, our interface introduces an approach to assess alternative accessibility options to isolated settlements by helicopter or off-road routes that builds on satellite data and interactive collaborative mapping. This set of visualization and interaction techniques facilitates the...