UX Research for Coordinated Emergency Response with Utility Companies
UX Research · Workflow Mapping · Interviews · Service Design
PRODUCT OVERVIEW
Academic project exploring how public safety agencies and utility companies can share a common operating picture during large-scale emergencies. Researched workflows, mapped coordination gaps, and proposed AI-enhanced TAK integrations to reduce delays and improve safety.
TIMELINE
2 Months - Summer 2025
ROLE
-
UX Researcher focusing on interagency workflows and service design in a 2-person team.
-
Conducted stakeholder interviews with public safety leadership (EOC Director, Fire CTO) and industry leaders.
-
Mapped end-to-end coordination workflows and synthesized findings into an AI-enhanced TAK design direction.
TOOLS
Figma, Miro, Google AI Studio
THE PROBLEM
Even when every minute counts, public safety and utility crews still operate on different systems, different maps, and different timelines.
When storms, fires, or outages strike, both sides move fast. Public safety relies on radios, dispatch logs, and whiteboards, while utilities depend on outage dashboards and SCADA systems, with command centers on both sides setting up Emergency Operations Centers and Network Operations Centers. Yet coordination between the two remains analog, mostly through phone calls and emails.
With no shared system, hazards linger, restoration is delayed, and both crews face unnecessary risks.
THE USERS
From emergency command to the field, coordination breaks down differently for each user group we encountered, and so do their priorities.
These archetypes were grounded in in-depth interviews with emergency operations directors, fire department leadership, technologists, and data scientists who live and breathe the reality of emergency response coordination every day.
OUR VISION
What if every agency, from the EOC commander to the utility crew could see the same live map without abandoning the systems they already rely on?
We weren’t trying to replace dispatch logs, outage dashboards, or radios. Instead, our vision was a shared common operating map that for the most part maintains itself through automated integrations pulling in updates from existing systems, monitoring live radio traffic using transcription powered by OpenAI's Whisper, and automatically updating the map with status changes.
We defined three guiding principles through the project:
These principles helped us define our vision as a central reference map:
-
Public safety continues using their CAD or GIS systems.
-
Utilities continue using their outage management tools.
-
AI ingests those inputs (plus radios, transcripts, and reports) and updates the common operating picture in real time.
The result is a shared picture of the incident visible to any agency without forcing a system overhaul.
To ground this vision, we conducted desk research and case study reviews, looking closely at the open source GIS system at the center of the Lab's proposal, the Team Awareness Kit (TAK).
WHAT IS TAK
The Team Awareness Kit (TAK) is an open-source situational awareness platform originally developed by the U.S. Air Force. At its core, TAK is a live, shared map that shows the real-time location of people, hazards, and assets across an incident.
-
Cross-platform: TAK runs on Android (ATAK), Windows (WinTAK), iOS, web, and even wearables.
-
Shared visibility: Users can drop pins, draw perimeters, and broadcast alerts, all of which appear instantly for others on the same feed.
-
Extensible: A rich plugin ecosystem allows TAK to ingest new data sources (like outage systems, drones, or air quality sensors) and integrate with external systems.
In practice, TAK has already been deployed at scale in Colorado, Texas, and California. Each of these use cases demonstrate how TAK can unify agencies that normally operate in silos without forcing them to give up their existing tools.
For our project, TAK served as the canvas where AI could do its work: transcribing radio chatter, ingesting outage management data, and automatically updating the shared map so that both public safety and utilities could trust they were seeing the same picture.
THE PROCESS
This project was about laying the foundation for the project while mapping how coordination really happens today, and where we could make a difference.
In preparation for a funded proposal with a national telecommunications utility provider, IU RedLab was exploring foundational research on how TAK could support real-time coordination between utilities and public safety. Our role was to map the workflows, surface pain points, and gather evidence to guide future solutions.
STAKEHOLDER INTERVIEWS
As part of this effort, we conducted five in-depth interviews with:
Information shared with attribution consent from interviewees
These conversations gave us frontline stories of coordination breakdowns from command staff juggling multiple maps, to utility crews waiting in unsafe zones, to field responders overloaded with radio chatter.
We analyzed the transcripts by breaking it down into >100 different data points and coding them using thematic analysis, documenting every mention of frustrations, workarounds, and gaps. This surfaced recurring themes like technology limitations, lack of a shared view, information overload, and delayed communication.
WORKFLOW MAPPING
To connect these insights, we built an end-to-end workflow map tracing both command-level and field-level actions across a large-scale emergency. Each step showed who acts when, how information is exchanged, and where delays or gaps emerge.
OPPORTUNITIES
By combining literature review, stakeholder interviews, and workflow mapping, we surfaced clear opportunities for how TAK + AI could transform coordination.
-
Shared Map as a Common Operating Picture: A TAK-based map that all agencies can trust
-
AI-Driven Data Ingestion: AI monitors multiple feeds, de-duplicates the noise, and auto-populates hazard pins.
-
Faster Situational Reports: AI filters and prioritizes critical updates to generate live reports.
PROPOSED DESIGN DIRECTION
Imagine a summer storm knocks down a high-voltage line onto a major road
In an emergency situation such as this, public safety arrives quickly, securing the scene and directing traffic. Utilities mobilize crews, but they’re working off a different map, notified through phone calls or outage dashboards.
The two teams are aligned in priorities to restore safety, restore service, but their systems don’t align. That mismatch costs minutes, money, and sometimes lives.
Our design direction positions TAK as the shared common operating picture, while AI works in the background to keep it current.
HOW IT WORKS
-
AI listens: Radio chatter, EOC transcripts, outage management data.
-
AI updates: Auto-populates TAK with hazard pins, statuses, and role-specific markers.
-
Everyone sees: Command, responders, and utility crews all view the same live map, tailored to their role.
We wrapped with a structured handoff of research artifacts, workflow maps, and stakeholder insights, documented for the next team to advance into design and testing.
OUTCOMES
"A well-structured report with thoughtful insights and modern research techniques. Terrific work"
- Sonny Kirkley
$100K
GRANT APPLICATION
Our foundational research supported our project sponsor IU RedLab’s proposal for a national utilities provider, supporting continued research and development of AI-enhanced coordination tools.
This project taught me how to unpack complex, cross-agency workflows and translate them into clear design opportunities, and perhaps even more importantly, I gained experience in communicating research to an audience agnostic to a field, while influencing stakeholders and guiding real-world next steps.
Check out this Case Study Next!
or