Understanding Situational Disabilities and Situational Awareness in Disasters

Abstract

In this paper, a scenario-based approach augmented with personas typically used in universal design and interactive design domains is used to illustrate the occurrence of situational disabilities in emergency situations, and to show how environmental factors can trigger these situational disabilities. With the help of personas representing selected archetypical characteristics and roles, the scenarios are further examined to show how these situational disabilities can affect the situational awareness of different stakeholders, not only in the command and control centers, but also first responders in the field as well as affected members of the public. This approach provides a better understanding of the importance of universal design of ICT for Emergency Management, not only for people with disabilities and the elderly, but for anyone.