Promoting Situation Awareness: Usability of a Social Media Tool for Journalists and Crisis Managers

Crisis communicators and journalists need stable structures to handle social media content in emergencies, but struggle with information overload. The usability of a tool intended to support information gathering was investigated by conducting two usability tests (low- and high-fidelity prototypes) with journalists. The aims were to investigate how well the design reflected users' general mental models of emergency work, and how it responded to the specific requirements set by work in high-stress surroundings. Tests were conducted in a laboratory. Participants understood the main prototype concepts, but struggled with time-consuming tasks, for instance, those related to saving content or evaluating information quality. To provide good situation awareness - and to fit in with user expectations - a system should gather information from several social media outlets and allow for varying possible user modes. However, system designers need to carefully balance between including necessary features and avoiding tasks that require complex manual actions.