Evaluation of a digital map platform for Emergency management

Abstract

The current situation for digital Emergency Management has a lot of different emergency responders utilizing many different digital platforms that do not talk with each other, this often leads to misinformation between emergency responder. The digital map software Square wants to create a unified platform that emergency responders can utilize to better spread information. With a large expected user group that can have many different users it's important that the system is universally designed so that it is accessible and intuitive to use for as many people as possible. In this study we have conducted a Universal Design evaluation of Square.

We used several different methods to evaluate whether or not the software Square was universally designed and accessible. We conducted two different expert Universal Design evaluation, a heuristics evaluation and a WCAG guidelines success criteria evaluation, using both automatic and manual methods. We also conducted a round of user tests and interviews to get outside opinions on the software

We found that Square failed the WCAG evaluation, having several violations that means that it does not achieve a Level certification. The heuristics evaluation also found many heuristics violations.The user interview uncovered some new discoveries and gave good insights into how a new user interacts with the pages. The Square software as it stands clearly creates a lot of barriers to use for many different groups including barriers to use for people with impairments that may be common among the expected user base when the software is expected to be utilized.