Nutanix: Disaster Management Application design
I participated in the Nutanix Design Jam where we were as a team tasked with creating an app that would allow victims of natural disasters with limited access to data to connect with other victims or resources around them.
We identified four main features that victims would want to use in the event of a natural disaster. These include:
1. Getting Help
This app would allow users to view the area around them in a map interface and identify the location of resources and ask for help in their locality.
2. Reporting Resources
This feature would allow users to report availability of food, shelter and other resources available to other users in the area.
3. Mark themselves as safe and check if their friends/ family are safe
This is a feature that will let users let the world know that they are safe, this is especially useful for people living far away from families who want to know how people in the area are. Once users marked themselves safe, they can then check if their friends and family in the area are safe.
4. Create a community
In the event of a natural disaster, we want to give users access to a community where they could get in touch with other victims in their vicinity and have an open dialogue on different issues.
We want to create this crowd sourcing app which will allow users to know the real time status of the availability of resources and give them the ability to connect with the other victims around them.
Assumptions
1. Users have access to smart phones and access to data (we have designed for low access of data)
2. The location of users is used by the smartphone’s geo-tracking to show the availability of resources and give them access to the community around them
3. The normal emergency services being overburdened at this time which makes users opt to rely on the community for help
4. The app connects with social media profiles to collect information about the user
Ideation
We brainstormed our ideas to create a light app which lets users get help and report resources easily using a map interface.
We created user scenarios that would showcase the use of these features.
User 1: Mark Smith
Scenario: Mark hurt himself in a storm and needs help. He is stranded and wants to use the app to get medical attention.
The app would have a heat map indicating if this is an active hospital and they have the required resources to treat Mark.
User 2: Nina Jackson
Scenario: Nina lives across a supermarket and knows that they have all the supplies that people are looking for. She wants to report the availability of food via the app.Nina uses the app to report if food is available or not.
User 3: Sarah Walsh
Scenario: Mark hurt himself in a storm and needs help. He is stranded and wants to use the app to get medical attention.
The app would have a heat map indicating if this is an active hospital and they have the required resources to treat Mark.
User 2: Nina Jackson
Scenario: Nina lives across a supermarket and knows that they have all the supplies that people are looking for. She wants to report the availability of food via the app.Nina uses the app to report if food is available or not.
User 3: Sarah Walsh
Scenario: Sarah and her two kids are safe in their house, they have food and shelter to last through the flood. She wants to inform her family and friends that they are safe.
Sarah uses the app to mark herself as safe, she does this by using facebook. When she marks herself as safe, her details are collected on an external spreadsheet. She can also manually mark her kids as safe by using the form available on the app.
After marking herself and her kids as safe, she can use the app to look at the spreadsheet that contains the information of safe users in the area.
Sarah uses the app to mark herself as safe, she does this by using facebook. When she marks herself as safe, her details are collected on an external spreadsheet. She can also manually mark her kids as safe by using the form available on the app.
After marking herself and her kids as safe, she can use the app to look at the spreadsheet that contains the information of safe users in the area.
Other team members:
Josue Reyes
Manikandan Kandadai Venkatesh
Yihui Zeng
Josue Reyes
Manikandan Kandadai Venkatesh
Yihui Zeng
Zingerman's Crowd Management Problem
Our student team won the Deloitte design challenge to optimize the Zingerman's crowd management system. We had to design a robust system that a manager at Zingerman's could control to schedule his/her staff and inventory to keep up with their popularity.
The Problem
Zingerman's has problems with crowd management during busy game days. The manager has an ipad and three employees and needs to manage the rush and other issues related to running a restaurant.
User: Manager and employees at Zingerman's.
Information Needed
The information needed includes:
1. Local Calendar - in this case the University of Michigan events calendar and the Ann Arbor city calendar
2. Employee Availability
3. Inventory information
1. Local Calendar - in this case the University of Michigan events calendar and the Ann Arbor city calendar
2. Employee Availability
3. Inventory information
Problems
These are the problems currently faced at Zingerman's.
1. Scheduling employees' shifts
2. Inventory management: this gets very difficult to plan for game days in Ann Arbor
3. Crowd management
2. Inventory management: this gets very difficult to plan for game days in Ann Arbor
3. Crowd management
We propose the use of an iPad portal which is integrated with local, university and holiday calendars. Different modules would be available to manager and include the following information: Scheduling Employees - employee calendar and scheduling mechanisms. Also integrates calendar with predictive analysis highlighting busy and not-busy time of the month, year, day and employee availability. Inventory Management - calendar integrated with predictive analysis on the inventory and how to manage the inventory.
Crowd management - Zingerman's has issues on busy days as the lines get very long and the amount of space available in the store is very small. Due to this, they lose customers and revenue that they could capitalize on. We decided to take a three pronged approach to solving this issue. We created user personas to tell the story of three users that come to Zingerman's on any day busy/slow and recommended technology based solution.
Crowd management - Zingerman's has issues on busy days as the lines get very long and the amount of space available in the store is very small. Due to this, they lose customers and revenue that they could capitalize on. We decided to take a three pronged approach to solving this issue. We created user personas to tell the story of three users that come to Zingerman's on any day busy/slow and recommended technology based solution.
Strategies to improve crowd management
1. Use of mobile app
2. Using ipads/ staff to help with orders
3. Using self service kiosks
2. Using ipads/ staff to help with orders
3. Using self service kiosks
User Personas
We created three user personas to support our recommendations.
User 1: Micheal loves to have Zingerman sandwiches, he has been to the deli a lot of times and has his order pat down. He loves using new technology and is very dependent on his phone to help him streamline his busy schedule.
User 2: Sarah is new at University of Michigan and Ann Arbor. She has only heard of the Zingerman experience and wants to try out their sandwiches.
User 3: Jack loves to eat at Zingerman, he is an Ann Arbor local who likes watching sports and trying different sandwiches. Jack is comfortable with using technology and loves coffee. We now describe three scenarios for these users:
Scenarios
The scenarios are outlined as follows:
1. Micheal uses the Zingerman app to look at the menu and order the sandwich through the app. He knows he will reach Zingerman and they will have his sandwich ready. He walks into the store, pays for his sandwich and walks out/eats his sandwich at Zingermans.
2. Sarah walks into Zingerman's, she does not know what to expect when she gets there. As soon as she walks in, she is greeted by a Zingerman's employee Mary who informs Sarah of all her options and also gives her the menu and is ready to take her order. Mary then takes Sarah's order, prints her a receipt with a waiting number on it and welcomes Sarah to browse through the store as she waits for her sandwich. Zingerman's can measure the time it takes from the moment Sarah selects and gives her order for her sandwich till the time she pays for her order and decide if they can streamline operations.
3. Jack loves eating at Zingermans and wants to try something new, he walks into the deli and is greeted by Mary. He tells her that he will need some time to order and wants to see the menu. Mary directs him to the self service kiosks where he browse the selection of sandwichs and create an order for himself. The kiosk then prints him a receipt with his number and asks him to wait as Zingerman's creates his sandwich. Jack then picks up his sandwich and can head out or eat in store. Other recommendations: Zingermans should incentivize ordering through the app Having customer appreciation built into their model they could keep customers interested and engrossed while they are in line: eg. Encourage them to play games.Listen to music via the app.
2. Sarah walks into Zingerman's, she does not know what to expect when she gets there. As soon as she walks in, she is greeted by a Zingerman's employee Mary who informs Sarah of all her options and also gives her the menu and is ready to take her order. Mary then takes Sarah's order, prints her a receipt with a waiting number on it and welcomes Sarah to browse through the store as she waits for her sandwich. Zingerman's can measure the time it takes from the moment Sarah selects and gives her order for her sandwich till the time she pays for her order and decide if they can streamline operations.
3. Jack loves eating at Zingermans and wants to try something new, he walks into the deli and is greeted by Mary. He tells her that he will need some time to order and wants to see the menu. Mary directs him to the self service kiosks where he browse the selection of sandwichs and create an order for himself. The kiosk then prints him a receipt with his number and asks him to wait as Zingerman's creates his sandwich. Jack then picks up his sandwich and can head out or eat in store. Other recommendations: Zingermans should incentivize ordering through the app Having customer appreciation built into their model they could keep customers interested and engrossed while they are in line: eg. Encourage them to play games.Listen to music via the app.
Other team members:
Josue Reyes
Marcy Held
Ankita Gupta
Marcy Held
Ankita Gupta
