My hypothesis is that as soon as digital communication is recognized by both citizen and governance as a means to accomplish civic goals, uptake will be significant globally. We are seeing it happen rapidly in the Government+Hackers love fest of civic data fun. We are not however, seeing better means to allow every human to share their needs in the regional context.
The prioritizing and response to any declared need.emergency.etc. has been for some time, to create a concentration of power in decisionmaking to a smaller number of individuals. They accrue influence and usually deliver fewer results over time. It is now feasible that every human population group known, has had contact with a mobile phone at some point. This device is capable of delivering an essential content packet that conforms to the needs of the user by allowing them to interact with data and express themselves. Learning essential datum is a personal choice every day. We tend to be fascinated by things we love, so it follows that I would want to make my own personal representation the world I enjoy. We do this with playlists and desktops. Data that affects my life should be always accessible.
Favoring interface that is not very language specific, having animations and icons or even voice interaction for most of the communicative work' improves reliability of the ecosystem and allows customization of image without affecting function.
Reinforcing design decisions based upon non-language, and cross cultural needs.
Focusing on what we have in common, we can become humans-first and avoid highlighting differences. If the user's interface enables seeing the scope of the problem easily, their priorities shift quickly - and appropriately.
Pictures and scribbles serve us well. Their effective use is an art in minimalism and creativity (creating that interface should be influenced by Deaf designers IMO, and I have access to a Deaf high school that could certainly entertain a design project/contest) We often agree upon a preemptive commitment to the principles of compassion and transparency with personal control. From ancient Hellenes to modern times it was usually a sign of impending weakness. Luckily other research is proving that we benefit from cooperative evolution. Halleluja. It is in our capacity to generate tools and free services so that phones are going to be a force for good, not just another crass technology for the few. I, for one would love to see a custom fab phone site that lets you pick your own components and the day is not far off, but until then, we have featurephones to deal with.
A graphical icon driven interface for a system that allows anyone to express their needs and understand whats happening around them could fit on a featurephone. It could be attached to voice message menus to answer questions or provide instructions. By interacting with data, text, audio and camera, every phoneholder is empowered to make sense of their moment; or ask for help, instruction, guidance or the opportunity to share knowledge with another. Sounds like the worst depths of AOL hell. AKA The Internet. However, when it is live and functional... something entirely different emerges.
Why do stunned traumatized communities emerging after the first moments of an earthquake or tornado, look first to others for how they might offer assistance? We care deeply about one another and will go to amazing lengths to provide it under the worst of circumstances. If I can clearly see what needs already exist, I can make quick decisions about adding my own to the mix or waiting a while. I may see ways to help out myself, or join the list of recipients. Neither providing stigma, but peer pressure keeps it honest.
Using a featurephone communicating with a system, the extent and responsivity of interactions can be tuned. If I throw my request to the wind it doesn't seem worthwhile. If I send it to a single entity they have a monopoly on my needs. Governments tend to do this. However, the spigot can be running in the other direction. If I can send my message to anyone in the government aid space or humanitarian outreach that has anything to do with what I'm looking for and expect an immediate concrete response.. my consumer perception of them just changed and my inclination to use the system again is assured. Short of having city employees randomly call people and ask "May I help you?" this is the widest applicable case to create the consumer expectation of timely response that's actually meaningful. Coherent to that is making analytics and rendering the data safe and compelling when displayed.
What I'm describing needs to be a parallel construction. It isn't about hierarchy or how to better report to the official channels. It is about the individual having control over what is sent and to whom, by default. That way governments or aid agencies can afford to order products based upon community requests. Addressing the community originated issues and priorities in an open manner makes you viable and relevant. Helping, repairing, constructing, remediating, governments have many useful uses, and another one is to be responsible to the citizens who supported it - without harming others. Governments are paying attention to Twitter. Twitter is a completely random happenstance that governments are now swimming around like a prize bulldog. We haven't even tried to truly connect a human channel of phone interactions and its long overdue.
What about a layer repository? I adore this idea. I'd love to be the Macromedia of data vectors. It would be like sending Flash all day. Potentially buggy, pretty cool at times, usually worth it if someone was really brilliant.
But we would have content. Its importance would be significantly improved by layers being able to visually interact with one another. Taking one layer's pixels and multiplying (or dividing, filtering etc.) it by the value of the other layer's pixels at the point their 'screen coordinates' are the same, offers an informative user-driven process with personally significant value. Their creations become like baseball cards. Each individual could share their 'perspective' and tell a story with great impact, quickly.
Sticking to data reduces unreliable factors and puts the onus of image hosting on the user. It isn't so bad though. Image storage and tiling can be cached on the device for immediate manipulation and would be nice to use for 3d interactions.
