Command & Control Platform

Intuitive, secure, robust C2 for the Australian Army and first responders.

/ RESEARCH / UX DESIGN / UI DESIGN

↓

The initial impetus for the Command & Control (C2) Platform came during the bushfires of 2019/20. During this time thousands of emergency workers came together with multiple government agencies to fight the fires and protect the lives and property of Australians out in the bush. The ability of everyone to work together and support each-other was severely hampered by the lack of a consistent, efficient way to share information with each other.

Fifty Zoo were engaged to research and design the technology, interfaces, and platform; ensuring it could be used reliably in the most demanding situations. We conducted research with first responders from a host of agencies in order to build up an understanding of how they plan and manage their responses to emergencies and designed an interface to track and coordinate thousands of frontline personnel effortlessly on both mobile and web devices.

SECTOR
Defence,
Public Service Agencies

TIMEFRAME
24+ months (ongoing)

STATUS
Ongoing Development

Our
approach

Fifty Zoo’s Experience Definition™ approach is specifically engineered to help design a solution that aligns with the organisation’s operating model, solves key challenges, and delivers services that customers want to use - not just need to use.

Align

For this engagement we worked closely with our customer. Many of the team had hands on experience from the 2019 bushfires across Australia and we used these experiences to unpack and align around the challenges we thought we could solve through our design for the C2 Platform.

Key activities:

Project Kickoff
Ethology Workshop
Challenge Identification

The challenges we identified

/ Situational Awareness

Previously in large scale disaster situations there would be no real time location tracking leading to confusion around where teams were and who needed assistance.

/ Coordination of effort

Information around tasks and objectives would be shared through a variety of ad hoc methods based on whatever technology was available (including apps like Gmail or Dropbox). PDF’s were often the default way of packaging orders or updates which meant information could rapidly become out of date.

/ Ad hoc communications

Not everyone was equipped with radios out in the field but there was still a need to ensure everyone could be contacted if necessary. In these instances, Email, WhatsApp, or other Instant Messaging apps might be used. But there was no easy way to keep track of communications.

Discover

We worked with a host of currently serving members of first responder agencies to better understand the context, challenges, and limitations that they constantly operate within. This was all used to ensure we designed an experience that met their needs.

Key activities:

Stakeholder Interviews
User Research
Comparative Reviews
Journey Mapping

What we
learned

/ If danger is at hand, then personnel need a way to be notified immediately so that they can take steps to protect themselves.

/ The C2 Platform needed to be operable in areas where mobile coverage was non existent.

/ Real time PLI needed to be an integral part of the solution but not at the expense of the end users’ mobile batteries.

/ Frontline personnel don’t have time for looking at their phones. We needed to ensure that critical information could be conveyed to them as quickly as possible without distracting them from the task at hand.

/ Different organisations have different protocols for handling them same types of situation, the platform needed to be flexible enough to support each of those processes or workflows.

/ Operators in charge of operations could be managing a small group of personnel, or they could be overseeing thousands of people from multiple organisations. The platform needed to be able to support both small and large operations.

/ Conditions in an emergency situation can change incredibly quickly so, as much as operators needed to be able to build out a plan quickly and easily, they also needed to be able to change plans just as quickly and ensure that everyone knew plans had changed.

The people we’re designing for

/ Commanders

In any emergency situation the commanders need a clear view of the details of the incident, both the cause and the current situation. They can use this to formulate an effective response. Once this is underway the priority becomes one of tracking and monitoring to ensure people are safe and that everyone knows what to do.

/ Front Line or Field Workers

The teams out in the field need to be clear on what their orders are and where they need to be to do it. If the situation changes then they need to be notified. Because of the life threatening nature of their role it is critical that they receive only the most critical information in order to prevent distraction.

Define

We focussed on an iterative succession of prototypes to quickly develop out a high level UI framework that allowed users to easily create and manage missions. The UI is designed to be simple and intuitive, enabling users to configure every aspect of the interface, and to be usable in any environmental conditions.

Key activities: