The Human Side of a Natural Disaster
Thriving Communities Partnership
UX
Background
Following the North Queensland Monsoon Disaster of 2019, Thriving Communities Partnership (TCP) initiated a human-centred research project. The project aimed to understand and evaluate how existing support and services impacted the locals ability to respond and recover. The purpose of this initiative was to identify opportunities to provide actionable, cross-sector, human-centred improvements. The improvements will empower communities to continue to thrive when faced with disaster. My role in this project was part of a two person team from Symplicit, conducting the research and design.
Process
This unique project developed a whole-of-community journey, utilising Symplicit’s traditional approach in an untraditional way. The monsoon took place in Townsville, so Keith (project lead) and I flew up to conduct deep contextual interviews. We talked with residents and small business owners who experienced vulnerability due to the disaster. These interviews created more than 2000 data points to inform evidence-based decisions.
Arriving back in Brisbane, Keith and I bought in a colleague to help synthesise the complex data collected. Together we created new analysis methods to deal with the complexity of the research findings. We synthesised the data and developed two draft community journey maps. I transformed the drafts into two finalised journey maps that show process, emotions, gaps and opportunities. Keith and TCP partners worked on creating an associated report. Both artefacts illustrated the positive and negative impacts on resilience experienced by residents and local business owners.
Impact
The narrative created by Keith and myself assisted strong inclusive collaborations between TCP partners, communities and organisations. These co-creation opportunities can improve national disaster preparedness and resilience in the future.
This project was bought to the design industry's attention when it won a Best in Class Good Design Award for Design research in 2021.
The project also lead to a secondary piece of work which involved understanding the experience of frontline service providers assisting the community. From there the team evaluated how the service and support ecosystem impacted on the local community’s experience and influenced their ability to respond and recover.
Deliverables
Residential Journey Map
Business Journey Map
Research Report
