An integrated smart home system that uses sensors to visually map one’s defensible space allowing the user to see wildfire vulnerabilities in their property.
Application Prototype
Application Features
Physical Product and Technology Used
Key Findings
Executive Summary🔗 / Poster 🔗
A integrated smart home system that enables the house’s defensible to be visually mapped and simulated on to create a home that is ready (at least in theory) for shelter-in-place in case of a wildfire.
Understanding the Problem Area
Although Natural Disasters get a lot of attention, there is a lack of modern technology used in these sectors . The absence of technology leaves room for quite a bit of uncertainty and error which is why we thought it might be a little interesting to look into these misfortunes though the lens of digital twin technology.
Objective
Creation of a service, product or a mobile application that involves the use of the digital twin technology.
Our Goal
Creation of a product that fosters the idea of a fire-adaptive community and eliminates the risk of forest fires.
fireShield- Vision Video
fireShield Vision Film by: Austin Lavalley (Editor), Mahesh Chavan, Nilima Chavan, Nikhil Chavan (Actor), Aparna Somvanshi (Videographer), Varun Khatri (Script), Amanda Kong (Graphics), and Jackson Corbett.
Understanding the Relevance of the problem
The Research Process Overview
Anthropogenic
\ ˌan(t)-thrə-pə-ˈje-nik \
of, relating to, or resulting from the influence of human beings on nature.
So if fire isn't all bad?
then we must be better adapted for fire prone living.
Understanding a Fire-Adapted Community
Understanding the Bitter Truth
Forest fires can’t burn down your house even in a prone area if the correct actions are taken.
Measures that are being taken
There are programs in place like Firewise that aim at creating fire-adapted communities. However, while they are locally successful, they are not widely successful.
People are not responsible...
+ Optimism bias (“Won’t happen to me”)
+ Laziness to maintain property
+ Want to save money
until they are affected.
+ A recent fire increases interest to participate in wildfire preparation to maintain property
Defining the problem and affinitizing our data points
Target Audience
+ aged 30-50
+ home and property owners
+ (initially) financially strong
+ live in fire-prone areas such as California
Personas and Journey Maps
Initially, we came up two different concepts from our idea pool.
We chose to focus on the first concept but with additional features from the second concept
Introducing fireShield
A integrated smart home system that enables the house’s defensible to be visually mapped and simulated on to create a home that is ready (atleast in theory) for shelter-in-place
Information Architecture
In order to create a seamless structure for the application we heavily looked into the system that allows users to understand where they are — and where the information they want is — in relation to their current position with several iterations based on the results.
Insight #1
Some of our labelling vocabulary is too confusing for the average person.
Insight #2
Our groups can be nested within each other because they have a good amount of overlap.
Insight #3
There is confusion in the difference between lockdown, simulation and forecast at times.
The difference can be explained during onboarding.
Wire-framing, Evaluation and Prototyping
User Testing Methods
USE Results Comparison
After Evaluating two rounds based on the tasks: basic login, running a simulation, running a test lockdown, adding a item to the home inventory, browsing and filtering community members, checking community leaderboard and contacting community members, and checking the fire forecast.
My takeaway from this project
After Evaluating two rounds based on the tasks: basic login, running a simulation, running a test lockdown, adding a item to the home inventory, browsing and filtering community members, checking community leaderboard and contacting community members, and checking the fire forecast.