“Plan 72” is a system of guides and resources that helps households create and document a plan for the 72 hours after an emergency. It is also a platform that enables the participation of households, community organizations and experts from around the world.
Plan 72 is inherently user-centered because the system empowers households to create a personalized plan that is appropriate for their unique needs. By conducting user-centered research to understand how people plan for disaster situations and how people have (or have not) executed plans after disaster situations in the past, we will design a system that makes the process more engaging and more effective. By leveraging the knowledge of experts and authoritative resources, this system will provide ample guidance and a framework to help people create sensible plans they can have confidence in. Plan 72 is intended to be child-friendly and engages all individuals of the household in co-creating their plan. Only if an individual has an active role in creating the plan can they be expected to know how to execute the plan in the event of a disaster.
The system involves a series of touchpoints including paper guides, a mobile app, an online community and local partners, that make it suitable for a range contexts. At the most fundamental level is a series of activities, completed with paper or online, that guide the participants through the act of making a plan. Along the way they learn lessons related to disaster preparation but in the end they have a well documented plan.
The use of digital tools and local partnerships adds new dimensions to the options that households have including the ability to connect to support networks, register with databases, build contingencies, store backups, and more depending on levels of network connectivity.
The online platform means that households, community partners and subject-matter experts can contribute to, share, review, adapt, and integrate plans from their community and beyond. A modular, building-block structure is one way of borrowing elements from plans created by other households. The platform makes it easy to coordinate with people from your community while also learning lessons from experts from around the world. Going one step further, individual household plans could be integrated into larger community plans.
The online platform also helps individuals or community organizations launch local programs on their own initiative. Guides can be downloaded and printed so that people anywhere can benefit from Plan 72.
While much of the design of Plan 72 is concerned with the creation of plan in the event of a disaster, by no means does Plan 72 end at the planning stage. The print materials and digital tools are designed to be functional in the 72 hours after a disaster and the platform itself will respond to the needs of those on the ground.