Pictographs for Linguistically Challenged

Use of symbology for communicating disaster information

Introduction

Within the HIF funded "Mobile Pictographs for Disaster Communication" project Sahana Software Foundation investigates the use of pictographs in disaster information systems to understand the challenges for implementing a pictograph-based disaster communication system on mobile phones with the capability to save life and livelihoods in disaster situations.

30% of the Asian and Sub-Saharan populations are low-literate. Present day ICT-driven disaster and climate change communication does not provide the means for sharing risk information with and receiving risk information from low-literate or linguistically challenged populations. There is no established pictograph dictionary and semantics. Our challenge is to validate the concept of pictographic disaster communication and to stimulate feedback on design requirements.

Pictograph enabled communication will empower communities of practice in disaster and climate change to include all linguistically challenged populations. It will bring about change in ways which risk is perceived and communicated by the low-literate and linguistically challenged. Moreover, pictograph enabled communication empowers interconnection of these marginalised populations for knowledge mobilisation in the given context.

Stakeholders

<Who will be the users of the solution?> <Who else will be affected by this solution? eg. Developers, Users of Existing Functionality that may be changed?> <How will stakeholders be affected?> Tip: Engage these stakeholders in the development of your BluePrint.

User Stories

<​http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_story> <A good User Story should answer the following questions:> <* Who the user is> <* What they want the solution to do for them?> <* Why they want it to do that? (goal)> <eg. A <type of user> wants the solution to <do something for them> so that <can achieve a goal>.>

Requirements

<Group requirements in subsections, e.g. _{etc.> <​http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requirements_analysis requirements> <Identify different types of requirements:>}

Functional

Non-functional

​http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-functional_requirements

Interoperability

Standards

System Constraints

Design

<Where relevant include alternative design options>

Data Model

(e.g. EER or class diagrams)

Workflows

<Diagrams or Pseudocode>

Site Map

<for User Interface solutions>

Wireframes

<for User Interface solutions>

Technologies

Current Implementation

<Leave open for a list of existing implementation of this solution in Sahana Eden:> <*a brief description of the implementation (date/time, name, design options chosen)> <*a link to the code> <*list of deployments of the implementation> <*links to case studies> <*short analysis of achievements/problems>

Planned Implementation

<List of goals for your implementations which you (include your name/github repo/IRC handle) are currently working on>

Future Extensions

<List of features which could be included, but are outside of the scope of this extension>

Outstanding Questions

<Questions about the features or design that haven't been (and need to be) answered>

Reference

Other Players

• ​Myanmar MIDO
• ​How to identify persons who are illiterate

Relevant Literature

• ​Federation of Internet Alerting article on the use of symbology in support of alerting