One of the first considerations for this project was creating the blog that will be used to track progress and in turn will help to explore areas of the project through writing about it. I knew I wanted to use something simple and minimal that did not distract from the purpose of the blog with having to do a lot of configuration, I did however want to have the blog hosted on my own server.

I have used WordPress for many projects before but it can feel like it is a little bloated for the purposes of a simple blog. I had read many articles about some new blogging platforms namely Ghost and Canvas that received positive reviews and seemed like a good solution for this project as they were free of unnecessary bells and whistles. The documentation seemed very straight forward so I set to work setting them up. As it turned out there were large amounts of dependencies that were not currently met by my server that needed updating and configuring and the documentation for both platforms were hugely lacking and inaccurate. After much pain and a lot of wasted time, Canvas was finally configured and working.

Upon exploring the interface and configuration, I realised that it has gone so far in the direction of being a simple blogging platform that it requires a lot of research and experimenting to make even the smallest changes by having to manually reconfigure the theme and that it is the very antithesis of what a simple platform should be.

Shortly after this I was listening to an interview with  Jen Simmons (Mozilla, CSS Grid, Layout Land) on the Big Web Show podcast. Jen spoke passionately about the web development industry and how things have progressed from there being a handful of rudimentary tools available to being flooded with new tools, platforms and libraries every day. These tools are intended to make the development process easier but most people are using them not out of necessity but an insistence to be on the bleeding edge of technology and therefore instead of creating a more streamlined process are creating an overly complicated workflow that is not suited to the particular projects.

This opinion really struck a chord with me and my own work and how I was looking for a solution that had no problem with something as simple as a blog for this project. It made me realise I must endeavour to not let technology or trends dictate the functionality of my application and at the forefront of all my decisions must remain the user’s experience and interaction and that the tool must be relevant and applicable for the situation it will be used for.

Planning the application data flow

This is the first draft of the data flow for the application. As I solidify functionality and features in more detail I will develop the data flow further to represent this.

How to create an interface and experience that is useful to users in a crisis situation

Knowing your users

I have been contemplating the concept of designing for crisis this week. What implications could a situation of crisis have on a user and what considerations must be explored to create a user interface that will serve the users current state?
In my research I discovered an excellent ‘An Event About’ presentation on this exact topic. In the presentation, experienced web designer and author Eric A. Meyer discusses the topic of designing for crisis from his own professional and personal experience of being in a crisis situation. He offers many insights, drawing from his own experiences on how products are designed with the ideal user in mind, one who is technically savvy, calm and in a comfortable situation but that we must also consider the panicked, rushed user in a crisis situation that is thinking and interacting with a product in a different way.

Designing for Crisis by Eric Meyer—An Event Apart video from An Event Apart on Vimeo.

Considerations

Some of the main points that I felt were relevant to my application and to keep in mind as the project progresses:

When considering our users we assume they are in safe and comfortable scenarios when using our application. Users who are not thinking clearly as a result of heightened emotions must also be considered.
Empathetic design must be employed to understand and interact with our users.
The concept of a crisis situation doesn’t necessarily occur only from the users scenario or location. Crisis can be created as a result of technological failures with the application. What features can be implemented to reduce this possibility.