Web-Based Emergency Preparedness and Response Guidance Platform for Urban Residents

This paper presented the design, implementation, and usability evaluation of a Web-Based Emergency Preparedness and Response Guidance Platform for Urban Residents, developed using the MERN stack and grounded in Human- Computer Interaction principles. The platform converts emergency guidance from static information delivery into dynamic, scenario-driven, task-oriented user assistance. All fifteen functional test cases passed with 100% correctness across authentication, scenario management, checklist persistence, admin CRUD, and mobile responsiveness. Qualitative usability evaluation with five participants confirmed high usability, clear step-by-step guidance, measurably improved user confidence, and moderate-to-high trust—with actionable improvement requirements in credibility design. The system directly addresses the research gap identified across the literature by providing the first unified, deployable, empirically evaluated prototype integrating HCI- informed design, scenario-based workflows, and structured usability assessment. Future development directions include: (i) integration of real-time emergency alerts via government APIs to surface live incident notifications within the platform; (ii) offline Progressive Web App (PWA) capability ensuring platform accessibility during power or connectivity outages; (iii) voice- guided step narration for hands-free interaction during active emergency response; (iv) personalisation engine adapting scenario recommendations to user location, household profile, and prior interaction history; (v) step-level verified source citations linking each action to official authority guidelines to address the trust deficit identified in usability evaluation; and (vi) a quantitative longitudinal evaluation with a larger and more diverse participant sample to assess sustained preparedness improvement over time.

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