This document summarizes a seminar given by Jonas Landgren on designing technology for crisis response. Some key points discussed include: - Considering who technology is being designed for and ensuring those users are involved in the design process. - Questioning assumptions about how professionals do their jobs and treat them as users of designs. - Being careful about suggesting "smart" technologies will improve situations without understanding local contexts. - Using human-centered design approaches like spending time with intended users in their environments and listening to diverse perspectives.

1. Seminar at
ISCRAM
Summerschool
2012
DESINGNING WHAT
AND FOR WHOM?
Social Media
Human Centered Design
Crisis Response
Jonas Landgren (PhD)
Crisis Response Lab
Interaction Design Division
Department of Applied IT
Chalmers University of Technology & Gothenburg University

2. Adding yet another device vs make use of
the devices in place
Hand-held
technology tend in
some work to be
very hip-based.
Should we design
for hands or for
hips?

3. Why do we treat
professionals as users
and force them to
behave as users of our
poor design results?

4. We should pay alot of attention of what is happening
in a locality when we boldly suggest that ”smart” technology
will be such a great improvement.

5. Concrete Advice
• Make sure part of your team spend time with the people
you intend to design for.
– Dayshifts, Nightshifts, Weekend shifts
• Make sure you listen to the young, old, romantic as well
as the skeptical individuals.
• Never design what someone tell you to do, but listen to
what they say and then craft the design choices in an
explorative journey with these individuals.

6. WE ARE DESIGNERS
So lets be serious about it.

7. “Social Media is all about
information!”
“Eh…absolutely not!”

8. So what is so f***ing social
with
Social Media?
Discuss this in pairs for three minutes

9. Power-hungry people will always try
to convince you that it is a bad idea.
1. No it will not work, listen I have been
working with this for 20 years….
2. In 2002…we tried it but it failed….
3. When I send my men into a situation they
must have the best tools…..
4. When we help people…

10. Too many myths are
restricting our thinking.
1. You must understand every disaster is
unique.
2. People affected by a disaster are victims.
3. Rapid Information sharing is important.
4. Mobile phone systems are unreliable.
5. We always lack information.

11. How we talk about things will shape
what we can think.
Victims Rescuer
Helpless Relief worker
Thankfuls Heros
Injured Nurses and doctors
Beneficiaries Donors
Clients Servants
Consumers Providers
… …
.. ..
. .

12. We will your design take place?
People in local communities
time
Professional response organizations

13. HUMAN CENTRED DESIGN

14. • Action research
• Collaborative research
• Technology-centric design
• Ethnography & workplace studies
• End-user involvement
• Participatory design

15. HCD-Toolkit
www.ideo.com
Open-Source
Bill Moggridge Chip Heath
Tim Brown Tom Kelley

16. Disclaimer
THE HCD-toolkit is
NOT perfect nor complete.

17. Human-Centered Design (HCD) is a
process and a set of techniques used to
create new solutions for the world.
“human-centered” because it starts with the
people we are designing for and with.

18. Three Lenses

20. H-C-D

21. HEAR

22. HEAR THEORY
• inspire imagination & inform intuition about new
opportunities and ideas.
• unveil people’s social, political, economic, and
cultural opportunities and barriers in their own
words.
• Deep understanding, not broad coverage

23. Hear Steps
1. Identify a design challenge
2. Identify people to speak with
3. Select research methods
4. Develop an interview approach
(guide, scenario-based
questions, techniques)
5. Develop your mindset
(Beginners, Observe v. Interpret)

24. Methods

25. Identify a Design Challenge
» Framed in human terms (rather than
technology, product, or service
functionality)
» Broad enough to discover the areas of
unexpected value
» Narrow enough to be manageable

26. Advice when identifying your
challenges
Look for clichés / stereotypes
Invert, Deny, Scale,
Formulate hypothesis: What if ….

27. CREATE

28. CREATE
• To move from research to real-world
solutions.
• This is the most abstract point of the
process where concrete needs of
individuals are transformed into high-level
insights about the larger population and
system frameworks are created.
• During this phase, solutions are created
with only the Desirability filter in mind.

29. CREATE THEORY
• Synthesis takes us from inspiration to
ideas, from stories to solutions.
• Brainstorming makes us think expansively
and without constraints.
• Prototyping is about building to think.

30. Create Steps
1. Share Stories
2. Identify Patterns (Extract Key
Insights, Find Themes, Create
Frameworks)
3. Create Opportunity Areas
4. Brainstorm New Solutions
5. Make Ideas Tangible
6. Gather Feedback

31. MAKE IDEAS TANGIBLE
Prototyping is about buiding to think - whatever it takes to
communicate the idea. Prototyping allows you to quickly and
cheaply make ideas tangible so they can be tested and
evaluated by others - before you’ve had time to fall in love with
them.
BUILD TO THINK : ROUGH, RAPID, RIGHT: ANSWERING
QUESTIONS

32. GATHER FEEDBACK
A great way to get honest feedback is to
take several concepts or versions out to
meet people.
When there is only one concept
available, people may be reluctant to
criticize.
However, when allowed to compare and
contrast, people tend to speak more
honestly.

33. DELIVER

34. Deliver
Once the design team has created many
desirable solutions, it is time to consider how to
make these feasible and viable. The Deliver
phase will catapult the top ideas toward
implementation.

35. DELIVER THEORY
• Delivering solutions starts with creating low-investment, low-
cost ways of trying out your ideas in a real-world context.
• Iterative process that will likely require many prototypes, mini-
pilots and pilots to perfect the solution and support system.
• This process invites you to work in the belief that
new things are possible….

36. Deliver Steps
1. Generate several business models for
your solutions.
2. Identify Capabilities Required for
Delivering Solutions
(Distribution, Requirements v.
Capabilities, Potential Partners)
3. Plan a Pipeline of Solutions

37. PLAN MINI-PILOTS & ITERATION
For each solution in your pipeline, it is important to identify
simple, low-investment next steps to keep the ideas
alive. One way to keep iterating and learning is to plan
mini-pilots before large-scale pilots or full-scale
implementation.
For each mini-pilot, ask three questions:
» What resources will I need to test out this idea?
» What key questions does this mini-pilot need to answer?
» How will we measure the success of this mini-pilot?

39. People in Local Communities
time
Professional Relief Organizations

40. www.jonaslandgren.com