Ready for a hike?
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Transforming disaster response with vilma.

Transforming emergency coordination through adaptive design – a holistic digital platform that streamlines mission-critical disaster response.

course
Bachelor Thesis
team
Filippa Osswald,
Hannah Wels
supervision
Prof. Hartmann-Menzel, Prof. Dr. Schade
Grade
1,0

relevanz & Problemstellung

Analoge Arbeitsweisen von Katastrophen und Bevölkerungsschutzorganisationen sind den zunehmenden Extremwetterereignissen und Katastrophen nicht mehr gewachsen.

Angesichts der zunehmenden Häufigkeit von Extremwetterereignissen in Deutschland und weltweit wachsen die Herausforderungen im Katastrophenschutz. Die Einsatzkoordination in Krisensituationen erfordert schnelles, präzises Handeln – dennoch nutzen Einsatzleitungen noch größtenteils analoge Werkzeuge wie Magnettafeln und Papierkarten, um Schadenslagen zu visualisieren und Informationen weiterzugeben.

“Die analoge Arbeitsweise wirft uns oft mehr zurück, als es ein Stromausfall je könnte!”

– Matthias K., THW

research phase

The complexity of operational workflows required in-depth secondary and primary research to address bureaucratic challenges and human factors.

Through extensive interviews, user research, and on-site observation during emergency drills and real deployments, I was able to identify concrete issues in coordination processes. The research focused especially on workflows within command posts led by the German Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW).

Secondary Research
Analyzing workflows, guidelines and existings structures and tools in various organizations and situations.
Primary Research
Conducting intense user interviews and reallife observations during emergency drills and operations.
The analysis revealed recurring issues in documentation, the creation of a common operational picture, and communication workflows.
Time-consuming documentation
Visualization of incidents and damage sites
Redundant data entry
Misunderstandings due to lack of information
Communication center as a bottleneck

research phase

Die Komplexität der Prozesse erforderte eine intensive Research aus Primär und Sekundärforschung um sowohl bürokratische Herausforderungen als auch menschliche Komponenten zu berücksichtigen.

Durch zahlreiche Interviews, Nutzerrecherche, Oberservationen bei Einsätzen und Übungen konnten konkrete Probleme in den Abläufen der Einsatzkoordination identifizert werden. Der Foksu hierbei lag vor allem auf den Prozessem in einer stabsgeführten Führungsstelle des technischen Hilfswerks.

Visual Design of Factory Farming Exhibit

Fernmelde Modul

Diese Modul unetrstützt den Fernmelder bei XZ und bei vielem mehr das man hier lesen kann

Fernmelde Modul

Diese Modul unetrstützt den Fernmelder bei XZ und bei vielem mehr das man hier lesen kann

Fernmelde Modul

Diese Modul unetrstützt den Fernmelder bei XZ und bei vielem mehr das man hier lesen kann

The idea

The aim was to analyze and improve the digital application of Outdooractive. It's a tour guide for hikers, cyclists and mountaineers.

The focus was primarily on the structural reorganization of the app content, which was overloaded and inaccessible in its original state. In addition, a strategic and visual redesign of the app should be carried out using some Delight Features as an example.

the AnalYsis

The existing Outdooractive application was examined in detail using various analysis methods.

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This allowed us to identify a lot of problems.
Too many hierarchy levels
Community features poorly developed
Three menu items show map view
Discover Page arouses no interest

The evolution

Max and his friends go camping. They look for great hiking routes at their travel destination, which they edit collaboratively.

Based on this story, we created low and high fidelity prototypes with which we also carried out usability tests.

Sketch of Camping Friends
Sketches of Outdooractive Redesign
Wireframes of Outdooractive Redesign
Screens of Outdooractive Redesign

The results

In the final design, we used previously defined design filters to define the look and feel of the application.

In addition, we had the opportunity to concentrate on a few micro interactions and to visualize our vision of the app in the defined screenflow.

Wizard Filter
Find suitable routes quickly
Route View
See all route details
Points of Interest
Easily add suggested POI
Groups & Chats
Edit routes collaboratively and chat

The result of this process was a clickable prototype of the redesign built in Figma and the following video.

In the following video we were able to illustrate what using the new outdooractive redesign and its screenflow could look like. But see for yourself how Max and his friends plan their trip.