User Interface and Mobile Clients Specification (D5.4)
This deliverable reflects the work carried out in Task 5.4 (User Interface, visualisation and mobile clients). Its aim is to present the design of the user interfaces (UI) of the multiple applications of the PHAROS system. The three applications that are described in this document are: the PHAROS web portal for the primary users, the mobile application for the population (recipients) to receive alert messages and the web site for secondary users to visualise and access the available products.
The design of the different UIs has been carried out taking into account the system architecture defined in deliverable 2.9 [2] and the requirements described in deliverable 2.5 [3]. The responsible partners for the relevant modules have met in Athens on August 2014 for a workshop dedicated to define a mock-up of the UI of the web portal that enables to provide the appropriate services of the PHAROS system to the primary users. This mock-up has been circulated among all the partners to receive their feedback. The mock-up has been improved and refined through various iterations/discussions and has been used as basis to design and implement the operational GUI. Dedicated teleconferences have been organised to show the updates of UI using a desktop-sharing software (TeamViewer).
The PHAROS web portal enables the primary user to have a better awareness of the crisis situation by visualisation of various types of information on the same cartographic display: sensors information, risk assessment, available resources, weather information… The web portal UI enables the user to manage the incidents by creating or confirming new incident instances, linking events to incidents and/or linking incidents together. The relevant authority can start a simulation to forecast the progress of the hazard. A decision support system supports the user by suggesting some actions like the sending of an alert message. The UI enables the user to edit and send these alert messages to the population and to first responders using multiple alerting channels (e.g. cell broadcast, GNSS).
The alert messages are received by the citizens via the mobile application. The messages are displayed to the user on the screen of their mobile phone as well as read using text-to- speech for people with visual impairment. The first responders have at their disposal a derivative of the mobile application that also provides a chat feature and the possibility to send the location of the device to the PHAROS Service Platform (SP).
The third application described in the document is the web site for the secondary users. It enables them to access specific products generated by the PHAROS platform that are of interest for them.
For specific functionalities, the project will leverage and exploit components developed in the Alert4All (A4A) project [1]. Specifically, the mobile application that enables the population to receive alert messages will re-use some of the components developed during the A4A project for the mobile application (i.e. reception/parsing/display of alert messages). Also the alert message creation feature of the web portal will use similar steps than the ones developed during the A4A project to generate and send messages.