Project Partner
Duration
Oct to Nov 2019
Responsibilities
-
Survey/Interviews
-
Storyboard illustration
-
Workshop facilitation
-
Prototype
Challenge
Find opportunities to increase mutual understanding and build empathy between front line firefighters and their partners.
UMEUS
Firefighters are a profession that is constantly exposed to high-pressure environments. They have to adapt themselves to various extreme situations during work. It has one of the highest rates of mental health problems in the workplace, with post-traumatic stress disorder, suicide and depression being the most common among workers. Due to the unique nature of their work experience, sometimes their partners feel left behind by them.
Outcome
Approach
Research
10+
Video& reports observation
8
In-depth interviews among countries
(with firefighters and their partners)
In the 2016 mental health charity mind survey shows that many fire and rescue staff and volunteers have experienced stress, poor mental health.
One of the painpoint among different countries is
The couples value the time when they are together but they can't because of the different work times.
3
UK fire station observation
Firefighters spend a lot of time in the fire station with their colleagues. The busiest time is during the festivals.
Quotes
Firefighter
"Firefighters relate to each other like a family.
The firefighter community is tight-knit, so when you become a firefighter you feel part of something bigger."
— ( Tomas/ 6 years as a firefighter volunteer / Chile )
A day in the life of a firefighter
Combining similar patterns of firefighters found in previous research and interviews, we visualised a day in the life of firefighters and their partners in order to better understand and empathise with the problems and difficulties they face in their daily lives.
Firefighter's
partner
Intensive
level
Firefighter
Intensive
level
Key findings:
01/
It is difficult for firefighters to aware of their mental status and release negative emotions because they have an unstable and intensive daily schedule.
02/
Firefighters have unpredictable and changing work schedules and they may witness great catastrophe. It is hard to explain what happened during the work with their family members, which would lead to the lackness of communication.
03/
The relationship among other firefighters is very close and tight. Furthermore, they support and take care of each other.
HMW increase mutual understanding and build empathy between frontline firefighters and their partners?
How does it work?
A service developed for frontline firefighters and their partners both romantic partners and colleagues by using emerging technology and AI analyse backstage system.
UMEUS
For Firefighters
The wearable device will continuously track the firefighter's real-time emotional and physical state through the biological data collected during the firefighter's work. ( heart rate, hormol level, voice detective, and etc.)
When they have finished their work, UMEUS will recommend activities to help them release their stress.
For Firefighters' partner
By collecting data from both sides, AI assistant will analyse it and provide suggestions of how in sync you and your partner are emotionally at the end of the day. It will only show a Aggregation of how your mood relates to partner.
(the recommendations based on personal preferences and keep updating based on uses' interction.)
For Firefighters' Community
With the application of UMEUS, it will give the captain of the station a glimpse of the campus emotional states as it relates to others. Furthermore, the colleague can aslo know the emotional conclusion in their station.
Moreover, the backstage will provide relevant suggestions and activities when the team are not in sync.
Future-state journey map:
Some of the firefighters and their partners lack communication because of completely different work schedule. UMEUS aiming to help them increasing their emotional connection when they are apart. After they using wearable devices, they can easily check about the mood-related to their partners and chose some activities for their common leisure time, so as to increase empathy and reduce the emotional distance between them.
Firefighter's partner
Intensive
level
Firefighter
Design principles:
Final thoughts:
Taking an inniative of a project from scratch is a very interesting and touching experience. It give us chance to have a close look to this important and brilliant group of people. We listened to their interpersonal stories, their partners' difficulties, and how they support each others. Surprisingly, there are lots of similarity among among variouse countries and system regulations.
During the prototype session, we also had an inspirational conversation in firefighters' activity room and validate our assumption through simple visual storyboard with them and recieved positive feedback, which was definitely a highlight moment of 2019.
Special thanks for all the kind and sweet people who supported with our project !👏👏👏