Overview
Role
What’s Zenith?
Zenith is a product ecosystem designed to steer lives towards safety and instill hope during disasters, amidst our rapidly changing climate.
Globally, inadequate plans, distrust in government systems, and limited awareness leave us ill-prepared for escalating natural disasters.
UX Designer, Marketing Strategist
Team
Gabriel Mataleo, Leah Jones, Tra Nguyen
Tools
Figma
Adobe Illustrator Adobe Photoshop Rhino Arduino Open Ai
Initial Scope
We started by understanding how communities worldwide prepare themselves for the massive changes in this planet we call home.
Our initial topic is to study the different impacts that climate change will bring to the communities around us. Climate change affects everyone from being as small as a local to as large as the overall state of the planet. Prepared with secondary research, our team sought to get primary research insights to develop better our strategy.
Research
Our team embarked on a research endeavor aimed at gaining a comprehensive understanding of the decision-making process in disaster response.
Our goal is to explore innovative solutions that can enhance community preparedness for evacuations and recovery in our vicinity.
We began with cultural probes at parks and by the coastal areas of the greater Savannah area. Later we interviewed specific people of interest such as locals, emergency respondents, and scientists from the applied science division at NASA.
Some interesting insights were the idea of an island mindset, which means they’ll ride out a storm and probably will never evacuate based on past storms and distrust in how evaluations are done.
While on the government side of things, the data being collected by NASA isn’t necessarily being used because no one knows what to do with it. although some data is easy to look for, it takes a couple of days to go through the data after a big storm.
As climate change worsens, we're not ready to handle the increasing number and severity of natural disasters. We lack proper evacuation plans, trust in government systems, and awareness, putting communities at risk.
Ideation/HMW
As climate change worsens, we're not ready to handle the increasing number and severity of natural disasters. We lack proper evacuation plans, trust in government systems, and awareness, putting communities at risk.
Trust and transparency have a direct impact on people's decisions and well-being; our team wanted to make sure this was the biggest thing ensured by our solution and brand.
Part of our solution was to create a unified ecosystem of products that coexist with each other.
First Iterations
The Zenith ecosystem consists of Zenith Polaris, Atelier, and Mesh. Zenith Polaris is our public-facing mobile application that guides people in planning and responding to disasters and emergencies.
Zenith Atelier is our geospatial information platform that utilizes powerful Multi-Modalities LLM to help emergency operators identify and mitigate risk.
Zenith Mesh is our distributed network of devices that transmit information and uphold continuous connectivity across the Zenith Ecosystem for emergency operations.
User Testing
Our user testing was divided into 2 sections the UI and the physical prototype.
The UI we tested with users exploring how it functions and flows without any constraints. this led to our team being able to explore different layouts such as a nav bar on the left side instead of the bottom of the screen and with results being optimal to move forward. The UI for the government-facing side of the ecosystem we tested with EMS workers as they were experienced with emergency response software and knew what they were looking for.
Our physical prototype user testing was based on form factor and functionality, we tested things such as which form Is less distracting, can the driver use it easily while driving, is it easy to use and understand. An insight we had from users is they wanted to make sure it was not stolen so having neutral colors and a sleek design can help prevent this.
Further Developing
User testing allowed us to take the insights and user suggestions to develop our prototypes better.
During this time we began to make our physical prototype function within the ecosystem, the purpose of the Mesh is to take photos of a hazard in the road to upload to the ems dashboard to apprehend the situation.
As we developed more, we user-tested repeatedly after each iteration to better the final prototype.
Final Prototypes
Reaching the final prototype of our ecosystem, had some challenges the team prevailed to create an innovative solution for natural disaster evacuation.
Our team changed how both Zenith Mobile and Zenith Portal Visually and are interacted with by users; both interfaces feel connected and represent the attended user. Zenith Go redesign was based on exploring form factors that functioned well in cars.
Zenith Mobile
Zenith Mobile was the public facing aspect of the Zenith Ecosystem. We focused on planning, staying informed and being connected, not only with emergency dispatchers but, friends and family.
Zenith Portal
The Government facing aspect of the Zenith ecosystem, that makes the lives of local and state government EMS easier when times get tough during a natural disaster. EMS dispatchers can get an understanding of whats going on, who is available for task, and what’s down or is still operational.
Zenith Go
Zenith Go is the bridge that combines the Zenith ecosystem together. Zenith Go is designed to fit into all cars as the mount clip is modular and can be swapped out to fit any car. Zenith Go takes photos of road blokes or obstacles for others to avoid or have EMS assess the issue.
Zenith Go is part of a mesh network node that functions to create internet access for those on the road when low or no cell service is available.
How Might We
Rebuild public trust during disaster evacuation operations
How Might We
Ensure transparency in the response and recovery process
