Co-Designing Actionable USGS Earthquake Impact Products ​to Support Equity-Focused Disaster Management​

USGS has provided earthquake information products in near-real-time for over two decades, ranging from locations of the earthquake source to estimates of human impacts. Now that these products have been widely used and applied after hundreds of earthquakes, the USGS has an opportunity to evaluate who accesses these products, how they are using them, and what improvements can be made to better support decision-making. Specifically, the goal of this project is to address users’ needs to make USGS earthquake impact products, like the PAGER system, more actionable in supporting disaster management decisions that center equity and increase accessibility to a wider range of users.

This project takes a human-centered design approach to co-design updates to USGS earthquake impact products with global users of USGS earthquake impact products who prioritize equity in the disaster management work. Human-centered design involves iteration between users and product developers to design solutions that address users decisions, attitudes, and desires regarding a product. We combine a series of focus groups with a range of users–from humanitarian agencies to smaller community-based organizations–followed by interactive workshops with specific user groups to generate informational needs and gain feedback on mockups of improved earthquake impact products that are more actionable and accessible.

Project results are currently being documented, stay tuned!