20 Mar 2020
Lamb Vision: Coronavirus Situation Dashboard.
We are living through extraordinary times. A Global Pandemic has been announced. People are worried, infection and death rates are blazing ahead at an exponential rate. All the while an atomic bomb has gone off in the global financial markets. In times of uncertainty, communication is more important than ever. Daily press releases are happening, never ending social media coverage and commentary, websites have been created and are constantly updated. But could it be done better? Is there a gap? We performed a global review of the digital platforms that governments have put together to deal with this crisis, and we wondered 'could it be done better?'
The Concept
But before we get into our thinking and rationale, lets cut directly to the chase and show you the product of our thinking. This is our concept (click for a full version) Note: We plan on making the dashboard. And would love any help promoting the idea to get it into the right hands.
Again, we plan on making the dashboard. And would love any help promoting the idea to get it into the right hands.
Continue reading for observations and strategy behind what we have done.
The Problem
The Federal Government has a massive communications challenge on it's hands. We are seeing unnecessary panic buying, strange social media memes offering all kinds of false protection against the virus, ever changing government advice and business rules, and general confusion. This is a multi-faceted problem, that involves ALL forms of communications. From online, public media, phone support as well as systems to frame the health response. These need to serve an endless list of messages to get out, where literally -everyone- is a stakeholder:But we saw that the major overarching objectives were to:
Educate the general public on what they should do
Calm those that are worried
Provide confidence in the governments plan
Provide quality information, that is consistent
The biggest risk if we fail is that:
People will underestimate the threat, and cause the virus to spread more than it should
People will overreact with their finances, freezing up the entire economy
Social media memes being unchecked and misdirecting peoples behaviour
Word of mouth deforming messages as they are passed from person to person
The Global Digital Response
From a digital perspective the Government, as well as all governments around the world, have put together websites to act as repositories of information. Specifically, the information needs this platform needed to cover were
Keep people up to date with the progress of the virus
Highlight government support available
Educates on the virus symptoms
This has been done, but...in a way that makes things a bit like a scavenger hunt... You need to hit a series of different pages and websites to get the picture you need. And for a lot of people, social media is their primary source of information.
What is the Core Solution?
The digital platform creation has approached the problem in a traditional way by the governments of the world. We believe this situation calls for newer and more sophisticated solution to the the communication problem. The root problem as we see it, is information FRAGMENTATION. Fragmentation of the messages and narrative. People are getting parts of the puzzle, and putting it together themselves. There needs to be a SINGLE SOURCE, a single PAGE, where people can get the most important information they need, quickly and easily.
To achieve this we would recommend the creation of a new URL: health.gov.au/officialcorona. This would serve as the clearly identifying source of what's going on. The would act as an official capture of all the key information, statements, and developments for what is happening with the Coronavirus. This helps with the problem of the velocity of the situation changing rapidly, and having a single place to get the important bits, and to fight misinformation. It doesn't provide ALL the information, but it provides the most important bits.
Country audit
Who did we look at?
When we looked across the various governments of the world. We noticed a common pattern.
Common observations
All the information was there, but it was scattered throughout the entire site.
There is a lot of text
Aesthetic weren't a big priority (but, seriously, who cares right now)
Summary
While this certainly isn't a perfect solution, it's a different solution. I'd love to know if you had any specific thoughts on how this could be improved. We feel it meets a need and bridges a gap.
Looking for idea on how to deal with digital communication and Coronavirus?
If you liked our thinking and were interested in what we would do for you, let us have chat about your situation. We'll talk you thought your goals, pain points and highlight what we think would be the most effective set of idea should be looking at. Book here for a FREE brainstorming session, or drop me a line on greg@lamb.com.au.
Greg is the Managing Director of Lamb Agency, a digital agency focused on creating industry-leading websites.
