1. Usability of Social Media During Times of Disaster World Usability Day Liza Potts, Associate Professor // @LizaPotts // lpotts@msu.edu Director of WIDE Research // Director of Experience Architecture Dept. of Writing, Rhetoric, & American Cultures @ Michigan State University College of Arts & Letters @ Michigan State University

2. Introductions… Director of WIDE Research  Social user experience, disaster studies, participatory culture, fans  Research sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum & Library Services  Leadership group for #WomeninTC and Chair of ACM’s SIGDOC Associate Professor in Dept. of Writing, Rhetoric, & American Cultures  Director of Experience Architecture program  Teaching classes in User Experience, Content Strategy, Digital Rhetoric, Research Methods, Information Design, Digital Humanities  Study Abroad focused on Cultures & Storytelling User Experience Architect working in/with Industry Partners since 1994  Built software used by millions, managed teams across three continents  Design Consultancies, Start-Ups, Microsoft, advised NBC/Universal, RIM, FordDirect, ICON, Willis, National Grid, Lincoln Financial, etc.

3. Prior Research: Disasters Studying disasters since 2004  Indian Ocean Earthquake/Tsunami  London Bombings  Hurricane Katrina  Mumbai Attacks  Norway Attacks (Utøya)  Christ Church Earthquake #EQNZ  Japan Earthquake / Tsunami  Boston Bombings  Sandy Hook School Shooting  Colorado Theater Shootings  And several recent disasters…

5. BECAUSE REASONS Why Social Media? Participation Interaction Presence Across systems, time zones, and cultures Why Disaster? Immediacy Time-sensitive Urgency Across systems, time zones, and cultures

7. Social Media Use During Disasters

8. Disaster  Participation Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami  Participation Through the MSM, Red Cross/Crescent, limited on Flickr Hurricane Katrina  Participation around MSM (CNN) with Craigslist and LiveJournal London Bombings of 7 July  Flickr, IRC, GoogleEarth Keyhole Maps, Blogs, cellphone video, MS Paint Virginia Tech Massacre  AIM, texting, Facebook groups Mumbai Bombings  Rise of Twitter, Blogs, Google Docs as information centers Boston Bombings  Issues on reddit and 4chan Since – Twitter, reddit, and culturally specific social networks

9. What are the issues? Usability Problems  Constraining use – lack of interconnectedness  Incongruence – what lies beneath vs what’s on top  Lack of contextual and cultural understanding  New awesome systems no one knows about Participant Solutions  Hashtags  r/news and r/?  Facebook, FB groups  YouTube, Image pools  MS Paint  Texting

10. Broken experiences

11. And Participant-Led Solutions

12. Thinking in Experiences Across systems, nationalities, technologies  Tasks: Information Gathering  Experiences: Narratives, Stories  Language: Cross-Cultural and Communal “…there are no Other People. It’s only us.” ~ N. Gaiman

13. Social Media Use During Disasters

18. Dina Works to Create a Participatory Experience “Our updates and conversations on Twitter kept us connected,” ~ Dina Mehta

19. Thinking in Experiences Across systems, nationalities, technologies  Tasks: Information Gathering  Experiences: Narratives, Stories  Language: Cross-Cultural and Communal “…there are no Other People. It’s only us.” ~ N. Gaiman

20. Experience Architects play a strategic role in brainstorming, building, and sustaining digital experiences for participants Our program is 50/50 for gender and 27% diverse – with the goal of improving diversity in the software industry, one student at a time Experience architecture is the strategy and practice of user experience from the perspective of the Humanities

21. B.A. in Experience Architecture Experience Architecture RhetoricWriting Graphic Design Information Technology Philosophy Computer Science

22. Talking to Prospective Students

23. Thank you! Liza Potts Associate Professor of the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures lpotts@msu.edu @LizaPotts Director of WIDE Research wide.cal.msu.edu Director of Experience Architecture xa.cal.msu.edu