Flare!
IBM Service Design Challenge & Capstone Project
Jan 2024 - Present
University of Waterloo x IBM
Members: Bernice Heng, Chris Pan, Jess Wu, Sasha Takoo
User Research
Stakeholder Interviews
Video Filming
Video Editing
Income Statement
Financial Projections
Competitive Analysis
UX Research
Marketing
Entrepreneurship
Finance
Figma
DJI Osmo Pocket 3
Canon DSLR
Adobe Premiere Pro
Figure 1: University of Waterloo stabbings a 'senseless act of hate,' police say after former student charged
PROBLEM SPACE
When safety feels optional
It was a regular day on our university campus- until it wasn’t. An incident unfolded that put the campus safety system to the test, and it failed. Confusion spread as students scrambled to understand what was happening. Many never received emergency notifications or received them late, and those who did weren’t sure how to respond.
Reflecting on this experience, we wondered: Why did so few students engage with the campus safety system? What was preventing them from being prepared? Our research led us to optimism bias—the tendency to underestimate the likelihood of negative events. In a university setting, this bias discourages students from taking proactive safety measures, making crisis response less effective.
refers to our tendency to overestimate our likelihood of experiencing positive events and underestimate our likelihood of experiencing negative events.
RESEARCH QUESTION
Our mission
To bridge the gap between perception and preparedness, our team set out to answer a fundamental question:
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Finding the reality of safety
To first guide our research, we first used an assumption map to visual our assumptions and secondary research information. We then plotted all our assumptions into an impact-effort matrix to identify which themes were the most important to further validate and test.
ASSUMPTION MAP & IMPACT-CERTAINTY MATRIX
Looking at the top right, I concluded words that described the three core themes were the most impactful and required more research. These included preparedness, trust, and engagement.
We then brainstormed methods to test each core theme. With this information in mind, we began our primary research design.
Starting with our survey, it had 4 sections consisting of; demographic information, emergency preparedness, trust and engagement in communication sources, and responses to emergency scenarios.
To round out our survey we ended with a reflection question to see if the survey had changed their perspective on their own preparedness and if they were encouraged to take further actions.
After the survey, I conducted stakeholder interviews along with my team by crafting semi-structured interview questions and conducted activities for the participants to test insights with current systems and/or competitors.
The participants included:
4 students
of various year-levels to explore personal experiences
3 safety admin
to understand challenges in real-time crisis management
1 fire drill coordinator
to identify the impact of optimism bias on reaction times
At the very beginning of the individual interviews before the semi-structured questions, I designed and conducted a five-second engagement test mainly for the front-end stakeholders which are the students. My goal here was to use 5-second tests on current designs to assess users' recall and measure what information users take away while also asking follow-up questions regarding trust and preparedness.
KEY FINDINGS
The disconnect between safety & action
Our survey of 26 students across Ontario revealed a concerning trend:
Through our stakeholder interviews, we discovered multiple concerns from both front-end and back-end stakeholders. One fire drill coordinator explained that students “don’t believe in fire alarms,” often ignoring them until they see others reacting. Meanwhile, a campus safety official highlighted a critical challenge: “With so much information constantly coming at students, it’s hard to make emergency preparedness stand out when it doesn’t feel urgent to them.”
These insights revealed a cycle of disengagement: Students didn’t perceive emergencies as a real risk, so they didn’t seek out preparedness information. It was found that students who have never experienced campus emergencies before were less likely to feel the need to be prepared for them, as one alarming quote lists below. Administrators, in turn, struggled to break through this disengagement, reinforcing the gap in crisis response.
4th year Carleton University Student
CURRENT/FUTURE ACTIONS
What's next?
