Fireflies
This project was completed during the Mindshifts on Megafires Design-A-Thon. The theme was Communicating Complex Risks in a Changing Fire Landscape. A special thanks to San Diego Gas & Electric, Wifire, Societal Computing and Innovation Lab, San Diego Supercomputer Center, UCSD Basement, Blackstone Launchpad, and UCSD Design Lab for this opportunity. My team won first place for our concept.
Team
Riya Rao & Naomi Crowder
Timeline
Apr 26, 2025 - Apr 27, 2025
Skills
User research methodologies, visual design
Deliverables
Pitch and poster
General Problem Statement: How might we design more effective ways to communicate these dynamic and evolving risks to the people who need to understand and respond to them — residents, first responders, elected officials, and others — before, during, and after a wildfire event?
Design Challenge: Design a concept for how to communicate these risks. This could take many forms, from an app to a public information campaign to a real-time alert system. Think expansively and inclusively; proposals can take unconventional approaches.
01
Getting to the Problem
Our primary audience to potentially focus on included residents, the elderly, and children
We found key themes from stakeholder interviews to dive into such as barriers to communication, current solutions available, + future suggestions
We interviewed 4 stakeholders (3 associated with WiFire and 1 was a homeowner affected by the Palisades fires)
⭐️ Key Finding: Lack of wildfire preparedness
⭐️ Key Finding: Children are a valuable communication source
⭐️ Key Finding: Understand risks preemptively
Post-refining our audience, user research with elementary kids showed us their needs
We interviewed 5 elementary grade children
⭐️ Key Finding: Schools don’t prepare them for wildfires
⭐️ Key Finding: Kids trust getting information from parents, teachers, and officials
⭐️ Key Finding: Kids have little prior knowledge on fires in general
TARGET AUDIENCE: Kids grades K-3 in California
02
Problem Statement
Problem Space
Problem Statement: "How might we empower children in grades k-3 to understand, engage with, and remember wildfire preparedness, while also serving as messengers for spreading awareness and building knowledge within their families?”
03
Solution Exploration
An assumptions chart helped us map out all our potential solutions to find the ones with the highest impact and were backed by our previous research
We then shortlisted our top ideas and sectioned them into different stages of the educational process (in-school assemblies, at-home family games, student led community education events)
⭐️ Key Finding: We settled on the middle section of the short listed ideas figure (pictured), as we found that gamified learning significantly enhances engagement and knowledge retention in young audiences (Boudreau) (Baghaei et al)
Children are also found to be more malleable, curious, and remember information more precisely than adults (Gualtieri et al)
⭐️ Key Finding: This helped us confirm that children are a great target audience for an education space
Children often bring learned at school back to their families, influencing household behaviors and influencing positive changes.
⭐️ Key Finding: Children shape their parents just as much as parents shape their children, making it so that teaching children about wildfires can in turn help their parents prepare better (Hogenboom)
04
Our Concept
We came up with an interactive, gamified learning platform to teach children in grades K–3 about wildfires in a fun and approachable way. The goal is to empower kids to feel prepared and capable of helping their families during an emergency, while also supporting them in processing the emotions that arise in stressful situations. Beyond the individual learner, the platform has ripple effects—families can absorb knowledge by proxy—making it a resource that can be used both inside and outside the classroom.
05
User Testing
We first storyboard tested our concept with Tolga Caglar (computational data science researcher and father) before creating a prototype
⭐️ Key Finding: Mentioned it would be good to pay attention to our target audience’s reading level (perhaps incorporate more visual or audio aspects)
⭐️ Key Finding: He saw potential in the game aspect as a motivator for kids to want to engage with the material
Next, we focused on testing preliminary interest rather than full gameflow by creating a paper prototype and conducting interviews with 4 children and 5 adults
⭐️ Key Finding: 4/4 kids were more interested in a “mission” over the “map”, so the way information is framed influences how likely children are to play/learn ➡️ language is a huge factor
⭐️ Key Finding: younger children (K) are more interested in playing than older, so making it more visual is important
⭐️ Key Finding: 4/4 kids wanted to continue playing the game after testing
⭐️ Key Finding: 5/5 adults felt this was an effective method to teach their children
06
Next Steps
Because my team won first place, we get to explore this idea further through an internship with the Societal Computing and Innovation Lab at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. Our plan of action includes:
🔍 Research more about what wildfire preparedness education would look like (what is important to know)
🛰️ Look in to integrating existing technologies, such as satellite fire tracking systems
🎮 Continue researching about game design for our audience’s age group
📚 Understand how to make this information digestible to young audiences
🧪 Test our assumptions
🔁 Iterate