Usability of Social Media During Times of Disaster World Usability Day Liza Potts, Associate Professor // @LizaPotts // lpotts@msu.edu Director of WIDE.

Usability of Social Media During Times of Disaster

World Usability DayLiza Potts, Associate Professor // @LizaPotts // lpotts@msu.edu Director of WIDE Research // Director of Experience ArchitectureDept. of Writing, Rhetoric, & American Cultures @ Michigan State UniversityCollege of Arts & Letters @ Michigan State University

Introductions…Director of WIDE Research

Social user experience, disaster studies, participatory culture, fans

Research sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum & Library Services

Leadership group for #WomeninTC and Chair of ACM’s SIGDOC

Associate Professor in Dept. of Writing, Rhetoric, & American Cultures Director of Experience Architecture program

Teaching classes in User Experience, Content Strategy, Digital Rhetoric, Research Methods, Information Design, Digital Humanities

Study Abroad focused on Cultures & Storytelling

User Experience Architect working in/with Industry Partners since 1994 Built software used by millions, managed teams across three

continents

Design Consultancies, Start-Ups, Microsoft, advised NBC/Universal, RIM, FordDirect, ICON, Willis, National Grid, Lincoln Financial, etc.

Prior Research: Disasters

Studying disasters since 2004

Indian Ocean Earthquake/Tsunami London Bombings Hurricane Katrina Mumbai Attacks Norway Attacks (Utøya) Christ Church Earthquake #EQNZ Japan Earthquake / Tsunami Boston Bombings Sandy Hook School Shooting Colorado Theater Shootings And several recent disasters…

BECAUSE REASONS

Why Social Media? Participation Interaction Presence Across systems, time zones, and cultures

Why Disaster? Immediacy Time-sensitive Urgency Across systems, time zones, and cultures

Social Media Use During Disasters

Disaster Participation

Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami Participation Through the MSM, Red Cross/Crescent, limited on Flickr

Hurricane Katrina Participation around MSM (CNN) with Craigslist and LiveJournal

London Bombings of 7 July Flickr, IRC, GoogleEarth Keyhole Maps, Blogs, cellphone video, MS

Paint

Virginia Tech Massacre AIM, texting, Facebook groups

Mumbai Bombings Rise of Twitter, Blogs, Google Docs as information centers

Boston Bombings Issues on reddit and 4chan

Since – Twitter, reddit, and culturally specific social networks

What are the issues?

Usability Problems

Constraining use – lack of interconnectedness

Incongruence – what lies beneath vs what’s on top

Lack of contextual and cultural understanding

New awesome systems no one knows about

Participant Solutions

Hashtags

r/news and r/?

Facebook, FB groups

YouTube, Image pools

MS Paint

Texting

Broken experiences

And Participant-Led Solutions

Thinking in Experiences

Across systems, nationalities, technologies

Tasks: Information Gathering

Experiences: Narratives, Stories

Language: Cross-Cultural and Communal

“…there are no Other People. It’s only us.” ~ N. Gaiman

Social Media Use During Disasters

Dina Works to Create a Participatory Experience

“Our updates and conversations on Twitter kept us connected,” ~ Dina Mehta

Thinking in Experiences

Across systems, nationalities, technologies

Tasks: Information Gathering

Experiences: Narratives, Stories

Language: Cross-Cultural and Communal

“…there are no Other People. It’s only us.” ~ N. Gaiman

Experience Architects play a strategic role in brainstorming, building, and

sustaining digital experiences for participants

Our program is 50/50 for gender and 27% diverse – with the goal of improving diversity in the software industry, one student at a time

Experience architecture is the strategy and practice of user experience from the perspective of the Humanities

B.A. in Experience Architecture

Experience Architectur

e

Rhetoric

Writing

Graphic Design

Information

Technology

Philosophy

Computer Science

Talking to Prospective Students

Thank you!

Liza PottsAssociate Professor of the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultureslpotts@msu.edu @LizaPotts

Director of WIDE Researchwide.cal.msu.edu

Director of Experience Architecturexa.cal.msu.edu