CHALLENGE

The main challenge of this project was to design a mobile application for the Italian emergency services. The MERSI app was designed and developed to enable users to achieve four goals:

• remind the user of the causes, symptoms, what to do and what not to do during a particular type of medical emergency
• help the user to reflect and learn from what he/she did during the emergency
• help the user to generate and record new ideas about how to deal with emergency situations
• retain knowledge from more experienced volunteers

APPROACH

Discovery research was carried out to understand users behaviour, motivations and needs. Visits to local training sessions, observations and one-to-one interviews were organised to meet the users and understand the process they followed, what they did and why.

Task analysis, personas, storyboards and wireframes were then created to design MERSI. Guerrilla testing and usability testing were carried out to validate the different ideas and design iterations. The  MERSI app was then developed in iOS.

RESULTS

The formative evaluation was carried out through usability testing and in-situ evaluation.The Italian participants downloaded the MERSI app on their own iPhone/iPod and used it in their own time for two weeks. They were then asked to fill in an online questionnaire and interviews were carried out through video calls. The results of the formative evaluation informed the design and led to changes to improve the app before releasing it to the Italian emergency services.

Research techniques: observation, interviews, task analysis, personas, storyboards, wireframes.