Life Saving Surveys with HumanCentric Technologies

HumanCentric Technologies is a design, research and product development company based in North Carolina. They focus on all aspects of human factors, industrial design, and graphic design. They provide research-backed recommendations to corporations and government.

HCT Testimonial (PDF Format) | Word Format

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Humancentrictech.com

Challenge:

Every year people drown after driving into bodies of water. The sad fact is that most of these people actually survived the initial impact, but failed take the effective steps to save their lives. Vehicle submersion death rates rank highest in California, Florida and North Carolina.

HumanCentric Technologies was charged to find out:

1. What people know about vehicle submersion safety?
2. Who is responsible for vehicle submersion safety (state or car manufacturer)?
3. How to best reach the public about this issue?

Survey Staff (Non-Technical) Requirements:

• Conduct focus groups to get a deeper insight into public understanding
• Design online surveys to be filled out by a sample population
• Capture responses to a database
• Analyze data
• Provide recommendations of action

Webmaster (Technical Staff) Requirements:

• Rapid prototyping of a functional form (by non-technical staff)
• Total control over form layout (by our webmaster)
• Secure access to the survey forms (to block spurious data)
• Ability to capture data to a desktop database
  

Solution:

Faced with these challenges, HCT incorporated FormRouter technology into their survey process in the following manner:

• Hosted live focus groups to better define the issues related to the problem
• Selected the appropriate technology to capture responses (online forms)
• Defined survey questions
• Reviewed each question to define the appropriate form field type
• Prototyped the form (FormRouter’s Simple Form Builder)
• Captured test data to a database (FormRouter’s Client Tool)
• Webmaster graphically enhance the form with his own Web tools
• Form was hosted securely on the web (FormRouter Account)
• Online survey ran with a control group and a random population
• Captured Responses to an Access Database (FormRouter Client Tool)
• Analyzed data
• Produce reports and recommendations
  

Benefits:

Survey Staff (Non-Technical):

• Ability to prototype online forms
• Ability to secure forms from the public with password access
• Ability to capture form responses to a database through the Internet

Webmaster (Technical Staff):

• Total control over form layout
• Ability to modify forms with any web development tools
• Flexibly to capture data to different databases
• No programming
  

Summary:

HumanCentricTechnologies was able to meet their custom survey goals on time and under budget.

As a result of this study, it was found that:

• Vehicle's manufacturers are not responsible for submersion safety education
• Submersion safety education is best done through public services announcements on television
• Signs should be posted in all areas of highways that are close to waterways to raise driver awareness to the danger