A recent project highlighted the phenomena of designing websites to deliver information for synchronous wide-scale interactions. This refers to the delivery of information (via text and multimedia) to a broad-spectrum audience in real-time, often in a crisis or emergency situation. One aspect of this is that the information is not only for situational awareness but for decision supports—making choices in real time and with real implications.

Crisis Communications

Some basic tenets of crisis communications involve the need for having a clear spokesperson who is informed and who stays on message. It’s about offering information to a wide audience to meet a variety of needs but in a way that doesn’t sow confusion. The information needs to be accurate and timely. All the basics.

It’s also about making sure the back-channels for the subject matter experts (micro-casting) are open. However, towards the public, it should be a one-to-many broadcast.

The information should be accessible—to native and non-native English speakers. Also, there should be text equivalences of all imagery, video and audio. Basic standards.

The Widescale Delivery Piece

The widescale piece then adds another dimension. This involves a wide range of people who may be concerned and anxious in a crisis situation.

There may be some assumptions made about their behaviors. They may be returning to the site regularly. They may be refreshing the site to capture new information. They may be staying logged in on a number of sites to set up rich streams of live and almost-live information.

They may be looking for messages about what actions to take and how serious a particular situation may be. They may want the reassurance of human connectivity through Web 2.0 technologies. They may want to connect with those who may relate to their own situation—whether it’s being in a particular shared locale or having gone through a particular experience.

And Post-Event

Later on, the research suggests, people may connect online with the intent of sharing experiences and making a situation right. There may be some volunteer endeavors. There may be a sharing of digital artifacts about a situation.

And all of this is done in public—with lurkers and non-event-participants who are also part of the communications piece. The participants then must finesse this public space to get their own needs met and those of others.