Santa Barbara

Emergency Manager: Yolanda McGlinchey

Santa Barbara was the pilot city for the Tsunami Evacuation Redesign Campaign

This was an ongoing interdisciplinary project conducted in collaboration with the city of Santa Barbara, California. The objective of this project was to systematically evaluate the utility of an evacuation map that had been constructed using principles of information design, to present information in a way that both maximized comprehension and retention. Systematic evaluation was incorporated using research design to measure information processing used in human cognitive operations. Utility was evaluated by testing the public who were directly affected by evacuation information. Map information and information provided by written and verbal modalities were presented and assessed both immediately (information recall) and after a 24-hour period (information retention).

Above: Before and after redesign

Walking streets signs (heads-up orientation).

The brochure was created in Microsoft Word to give emergency mangers access. With limited budgets, it also had to have flexibility to reproduce. These were printed on a desktop inkjet printer and hand folded for mailings.

and a mug…