Hello,
and welcome to the first issue of 9 Ambitions – a (news)letter by Johannes Schardt. You receive this, because you signed up at precious-forever.com, a design studio I co-founded.
Since my original idea for the precious newsletter grew into something with a more personal vibe, it felt more appropriate to publish under my own name, rather than the studio’s.
This first issue has turned out pretty long. My writing tool says it takes about 7 minutes to read. So you might get a coffee first and go to the loo.
What follows is about the virus, how could it be different? I’m pretty much absorbed by this whole situation. It’s constantly on my mind. Writing is one way to make sense of all these thoughts and emotions.
But today, I just want to share a personal anecdote, a little vignette that shows how design works (or doesn’t) in a crisis.
Bad Form
I was among 12.000+ Germans that couldn’t get out of New Zealand, because (almost) all commercial flights were cancelled. Fortunately, the German government quickly started to organize repatriation flights.
Stranded Germans all around the world were asked to register with ELEFAND (which stands for “Elektronische Erfassung von Deutschen im Ausland” / electronic registration of Germans abroad). Like tens of thousand others my wife and I tried to access the website for several days, always receiving error messages, because the whole thing was hopelessly overloaded.
A new website, rueckholprogramm.de, was created and – after some confusion – the official statement was to forget about ELEFAND and register there.
Before I continue, I want to say that I really appreciate the work that the people at the Embassy in Wellington and the Federal Foreign Office did. I’m sure they worked hard to get people back home and I’m grateful for that.
I also don’t have any knowledge about what went on behind the scenes. I can only talk about my “user experience” and reports from other people.
That being said, lets continue:
The new website was accessible right away. It even appeared quite modern compared to ELEFAND (which looks like a website that escaped Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine).
After filling out the form, a message appeared along the lines of “Your data was transmitted successfully. You can now close the window.”
That should do, you might think. And the person making this form probably thought so, too.
But consider the circumstances: As everybody, people interacting with this website were confused, concerned, even frightened about the virus per se and – on top of that – the immediate implications for them: aborting their holidays, being stuck in a foreign country, not knowing how to get back home.
Most of them already tried to register on another government website without success for days. Many of them filled out this new form on their mobile phones with spotty internet (the more beautiful New Zealand gets, the crappier the internet connection).
And more importantly: people are used to receive an email when filling out a form. When you buy something online you receive an email. When you register for a service you get an email (or two, or three). This application, however, was designed without a confirmation email.
While you might have gotten away with such a design under “normal” circumstances, it was a recipe for disaster in this situation. This form was the last hope to get back home any time soon.
In absence of an email – a concrete artifact that reassures you that your data has reached its base – many people logged in again to check if everything was ok. When they did, they saw… empty fields!
I guess you can imagine the mild panic this caused. One social media post from the embassy, urging people to only send the form once, mentioned that someone filled out and submitted it 180 times!
While not everybody was that persistent (or desperate), I assume that there was a good portion of people who sent the form more than once.
Unfortunately, confusion didn’t end there.
In the form, you could list fellow travelers. For me as 1/4 of a family, that made sense. I registered my wife and children with my account.
But for other groups, it wasn’t as obvious. Two adult couples traveling together: is it enough, if one person registers all four? Or is it better if everyone registers separately? But then, will all those people be on different flights?
To be on the safe side, some people traveling in groups registered separately, with each one registering their companion(s) in their main account. In the example above, that renders 16 entries instead of 4.
Considering that a lot of people filled out the form more than once (up to 180 times), plus those who were registered multiple times (with their main account and as a fellow traveller on other accounts), there must have been a tremendous number of duplicates in the data base, which made the work much harder for the embassy officers. In addition to the barrage of emails and phone calls they received because of all the confusion.
There were some other minor flaws in the form that probably made things worse for the organizers, but this is already getting too long, so I’ll come to an end.
The plan was to have two phases of repatriation flights: first those who were already in Auckland or Christchurch (were the flights departed), and then the rest who still needed to travel to the airports (something the New Zealand government was very worried about). Within those two phases, people with illnesses, minors traveling alone (i.e. exchange students) and families with young children should be prioritized.
When the lucky ones reported on facebook that they received tickets for the first flights, it turned out that some were not near an airport at all. This continued over the next days, which led to even more confusion and insecurity, because some people staying near the airports worried that they were forgotten.
Later the embassy published a statement that the plan was scrapped. Some reported they got tickets for two different flights, while other waited desperately for a confirmation. From the outside, it looked like a huge mess. I guess everybody got home in the end (for the last flights you could just show up at the airport, even if you haven’t been sent a ticket), but for most people it was an emotional rollercoaster. A seemingly little UX flaw stressed out thousands of people and made the already Herculean task of such a mission even more difficult for the organizers.
I’m not going to point fingers. It was an extraordinary situation. Everything happened so quickly, everybody had to improvise. You don’t have time for design reviews and user testing during an unfolding crisis.
You can, however, have well-tested design patterns in place. There should be clear guidelines that everybody can apply. Maybe it even makes sense to have some sort of form generator. Forms are the main interface between governments and citizens, crisis or not. Seems like a good investment to spend some more effort there.
Corona Crisis Communication
Here’s an example of good design: New Zealand’s public health campaign “Unite against COVID-19”. It was launched in the middle of March, when the country only had a dozen known cases. Within days, it spread even faster than the virus. It was everywhere: newspapers, TV, billboards, social media, mailings and as a backdrop of the daily government briefings.
Posters informing you how to protect yourself and others, Instagram ads reminding you to stay home, videos asking you to be kind and supportive.
But it’s not just the quick and widespread distribution that made the campaign successful. The graphic design was also spot-on.
It doesn’t look impressive, it’s not very refined, it’s not “original”. But whoever designed this – probably within a few days – I like to congratulate on a job well done.
The diagonal yellow and white bars are eye-catching and evoke a sense of alert and lockdown. But it’s not as heavy as a yellow/black combo or aggressive as classic red and white. There is some airiness to it. As if you could peak through the barrier tape and see the light.
The display typeface (Baloo) might seem like a strange choice at first. It’s not a type conveying authority. Its rounded characters are almost playful. But in combination with the straightforward design, it doesn’t undercut the seriousness of the message, but delivers it in a friendly, affable tone.
I like to believe that this cordial vibe helped in the acceptance of the lockdown rules. Although New Zealand wasn’t hit hard by the virus, the measures to contain the spread were much stricter than in Germany. Still, it seemed to me that people accepted them without much complaining.
I won’t go deeper with my design critique. Sure, you can find weak spots. But considering that this was put together on such a short notice, it would be presumptuous to talk about details like stroke weights of icons.
The design of the campaign is licensed under creative commons. You can even adapt it for commercial use, like this small print shop which produced signs and protective dividers for retail businesses. Templates for businesses are also available from the campaign site directly.
This is not only convenient for business owners. It’s effective. Shops using these posters contribute to the whole campaign. And people recognize them, because they are familiar with the design.
We read a lot these days about plans that governments have (or should have) in the drawers for pandemics, nuclear incidents and other crisis. These plans define protocols and processes, logistics etc. They usually also touch the subject of communications in general terms (be transparent, create a sense of urgency with alarm or panic, etc).
Developing a campaign framework beforehand, again, seems like a good investment. A visual language should not be developed when people are already dying. Every day counts, the faster you have your message out there delivered effectively, the less damage is done.
More To Read
So you made it all through the end and still want to read some more?
Slowdown Papers
Dan Hill is one of my favorite writers when it comes to design. In this series of articles, he “reflects and extrapolates based on the early impact of the Coronavirus”. A buffet for thought.
Gluedrops
Studio buddy Matze aka It’s The Glue also started a newsletter, perfectly named Gluedrops. The first issues are also about the Coronavirus pandemic.
Thanks for reading. This comes to you via email for a reason. It’s a letter. If you want to write a letter back, just hit reply. I would love to hear what’s on your mind.
Until next time,
Johannes