Indoor Positioning
An indoor mapping product with the capability to track user's X, Y, Z axis position, while providing the real-time information during fire-fighting.
DESCIPLINE
UX/UI Design, Interaction Design, Design Guidelines, Design for Tablets, Team Collaboration
ROLE
Product Designer
FOR
City Municipality
TEAM
Rogers 5G Create Lab
TIME
Internship Project
March 2023
TOOLS
Figma, FigJam, Mural
Teams, Zoom
Summary
The City of Fredericton Fire Department partnered with Rogers 5G Create Lab to find innovative opportunities to optimize their fire-fighting processes, utilizing 5G technology.
As a product designer for this project, I leveraged the previous work and consolidated resources into UX tools such as journey maps, user flows, and product features. I also guided the building of a hi-fi prototype for tablet version, conducted usability testing, and developed a design guideline.
Research
What CoF told us.
To determine opportunities for collaboration, we conducted a 2-hour meeting with the CoF fire department, reviewed their current fire-fighting process, and spoke with stakeholders to fully understand their pain points and potential opportunities.
We found the current fire-fighting process has several inefficiencies, particularly in how the fire chief obtains information on the crews' positions inside multi-storey buildings.
Firefighters communicate their positions via outdated two-way radios, which is the only method available to them.
"So what is exactly the problem?"
We found that during a fire rescue, a fire fighter who is lost or unable to communicate via their two-way radios may receive delayed or insufficient help. This wastes most of the time for them to save civilians as well.
But Why?
Pain Point #1
The location on the Z-axis is always unknown, only the X and Y-axis location can be tracked.
Currently, the location of a firefighter inside a building can be tracked using GPS along the X and Y axes, i.e., north to south and east to west. However, the floor or vertical position (Z-axis) remains unknown, making it challenging for the fire commander to locate and assign crews to different floors of the building.
Pain Point #2
Insufficient information of buildings causes uncertainty & misunderstandings.
The fire chief has limited information about the building layout, the nearest exit to a firefighter, and other crucial details. Additionally, real-time updates regarding the building conditions during a fire-fighting such as blocked stairways and locked doors are also unknown to them.
Pain Point #3
The communication between fire chief and crews is inefficient.
The fire chief lacks crucial information such as the whereabouts of the firefighters, the status of the rescue operation, and the severity of the fire. The absence of this vital information can lead to confusion, miscommunication, and delays in critical decision-making, potentially putting the safety of both the firefighters and the occupants of the building at risk.
Ideation
We consolidated our findings by synthesizing notes into an empathy map to better understand user needs, behaviors, and motivations. Additionally, we utilized a user journey map to visualize the entire user experience and further refine user pain points.
Empathy Maps
We crafted a visual representation of user experience from CoF fire chief, to better understand their thoughts, feelings, actions, and behaviors.
User Journey
Fire chief feels anxious at many different stages during a fire-fighting, from starting out, to when a crew is in danger, or to when fire gets more severe. Yet, there's no specific way to alleviate this. Thus, we mapped out the entire experience of what the fire chief would react during a fire-fighting, and identified key demotivation points to ideate around.
Now, time to consider Business Needs!
Focus Group
"The mission of Rogers 5G Create Lab is to find opportunities to innovate and monetize 5G technology."
We knew that there were lots of opportunities to explore with the use of 5G technology. Therefore, we scheduled a focus group and listed out different user scenarios for tech-teams.
Tech-team provided 4 potential 5G-enabled solutions, we went through each solution based on Roger's business goal and available vendors, we did a vote on each of the solution and decided to focus on generating innovative ideas that utilized IoT and mapping tools.
Problem Statment
HMW offer an indoor mapping and real-time tracking of users' X, Y, Z positions for efficient fire-fighting?
Brain Storm
Through several rounds rapid ideation from How Might Wes and combining ideas with the 5g-enabled solutions tech team offered us. We resulted in 4 main concepts.
Design Exploration
Previously, our team conducted several design explorations using paper wireframes, low-fi, and mid-fi prototypes on mobile devices. To ensure consistency across the product, we performed UX audits on all design files and components.
However, after a kick-off meeting with CoF, we decided to design based on tablet user experience and identified a few key missing design elements, including a clear user flow, comprehensive design guidelines, and final hi-fi.
Design & Validation
By leveraging previous design explorations, refining product features based on the 4 defined product concepts, and creating user flows for each feature to understand essential product logic, we were able to explore and define design guidelines for a tablet-based user experience.
User Flows
Through several rounds rapid ideation from How Might Wes and combining ideas with the 5g-enabled solutions tech team offered us. We resulted in 4 main concepts.
Hi-fi Prototype
Introducing the hi-fi prototype: an tablet app offers indoor mapping and real-time tracking of users' X, Y, Z positions for efficient fire-fighting, incorporating 4 main concepts: real-time updates, resource spotlight, incident reporting and member monitoring.
Incident Reporting
Use case
Responder team can tap to add markers on the map interface.
Fire Fighters can report to their chief via radio, and the chief will interact with the map to make changes.
Benefits
Allows the first response team to track changes as they arise
Keeps fire and police chief always up to date on the ongoing situation in real time.
Provides a visual of the overall situation and highlights other potential considerations.
Real-time Updates
Use case
Provide the latests updates, anomalies (e.g. in news feed, toast message) as they happen.
Capture everything inside a hidden menu, user can navigate through to check, locate anomalies/emergency.
Benefits
Never miss anything that happen on the other floors.
Access and trace any changes in one place.
No need to toggle or swipe around the app to look for specific information.
Member monitoring
Use case
Locates an unresponsive team member, check where someone is headed.
Visually follow a fire fighter to a location of interest and keeps an eye on vitals.
Benefits
Remotely keep track of a crew's x, y, z-axis location and health without being physically with them.
Can monitor a crew's health status without taking attention away and other important information.
Resource Spotlight
Use case
See if any first responder with medical skills is around to save an unconscious civilian.
If a crew runs out of supplies, fire chief can see who is nearby with more supplies
Benefits
Help fire chief decide, who is at the best location or most suitable to send to that spot to complete a task.
Design Guidelines
In order to ensure the user experience on a tablet device is in a consistent and cohesive manner, we crafted a design guideline. This guideline helps ensure out design is easy to use, visually appealing, and reflects the brand's personality and values.
