Smartphone usability for emergency evacuation applications

Abstract

Mobile phone ubiquity has allowed the implementation of a number of emergency-related evacuation aids. Yet, these applications still face a number of challenges in human-mobile interaction, namely: (1) lack of widely accepted mobile usability guidelines, (2) people's limited cognitive capacity when using mobile phones under stress, and (3) difficulty recreating emergency scenarios as experiments for usability testing. This study is intended as an initial view into smartphone usability under emergency evacuations by compiling a list of experimental observations and setting the ground for future research in cognitively-informed spatial algorithms and app design.