This interface visualizes the height of rivers at specific geo-points, in real time, and through time, in the form of a website that emphasizes information prioritization, relevance, reliability, and accountability.  The goal of this project is to visualize in a non-interpretive way and in a user-friendly language, the height of rivers at specific geo-points on a map as well as across a timeline that can be analyzed, downloaded, retrieved and reused by scientists and volunteers of the Red Cross. 

As part of a collaborative project focused on providing a flood-warning system –comprised of measuring the heights of rivers, collecting data, and translating data into a coherent package that is accessible to a variety of users or expert fields, and that contains appropriate and useful navigational tools– this proposal is geared towards scientists and volunteers of the Red Cross concerned with the impact of floods on the social, economic, political, and cultural dynamics of populations residing in flood-sensitive zones along rivers of Africa, where our proposed measuring devices would be deployed.

This project addresses the need for affordable and efficient technologies in the developing world, and focuses on flood-warning solutions in areas where the rates of floods are high and where there is a lack of data-knowledge. Providing such data and presenting it to communities in an understandable language, can help raise awareness of river behavior and offer new environmental insights and decision-making plans.

The process whereby this project emerged has focused on criterion of user-centredness through user capture, usability testing, and redesign in terms of findings, for maximum User Experience (Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Satisfaction (Jordan, Patrick W. An Introduction to Usability. Taylor & Francis Ltd.: 1998)).

After attempting to define the target audience in terms of its physical and cognitive characteristics, and creating a task list responding to defined user-goals, I developed an initial concept of a layout. This layout was tested on three peers who have some knowledge of technology, but less analytical knowledge. The concerns that emerged from this first test defined the changes made in the second prototype implementation. This second layout was, in turn, tested on two computer engineers who are used to looking at data and specifically at graphs. The responses from this test determined the final version of the layout that we have today, and which has been used as a starting point for programming the Website (programmed by Kelly Nichols).