{"schema_version":1,"research_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp04_external_evaluation_20260802","source_assessment_id":"negative_space_design__disaster_management:PROPOSAL_FIRST:v0","cell_id":"negative_space_design__disaster_management","search_queries":["site:fema.gov common operating picture information overload emergency operations center dashboard incident command decision making","emergency operations center information overload common operating picture human factors study dashboard","site:fema.gov NIMS incident commander authority common operating picture 2017 PDF","emergency management dashboard focus mode decision support common operating picture product","site:.gov emergency operations center after action report information overload common operating picture dashboard","site:gao.gov emergency operations common operating picture information sharing decision makers","site:dhs.gov common operating picture emergency operations center information overload","site:gov.uk common operating picture emergency response information overload decision making","site:doc.arcgis.com dashboards maximize element full screen official","site:help.juvare.com WebEOC board dashboard display view filters official","site:docs.d4h.com dashboard focus incident management official","common operating picture \"decision card\" emergency management dashboard","site:nist.gov emergency operations center task overload display human factors report","site:pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov dashboard information overload visual attention decision making simulation alerts","\"common operating picture\" \"information overload\" emergency management study","emergency operations center dashboard cognitive load usability study primary research","site:bls.gov/ooh software developers median pay 2025 web digital interface designers","site:gsa.gov CALC labor rates user experience designer software engineer 2025","site:sam.gov emergency management software common operating picture contract dashboard cost","WebEOC pricing emergency management software implementation cost public contract","site:faa.gov human factors design standard display clutter alarms mode awareness PDF","site:nasa.gov human systems integration handbook display clutter alerts critical information PDF","site:w3.org/WAI/WCAG22 status messages focus order hidden content official","site:nist.gov human factors display clutter alarm safety critical interface","site:scholarworks.waldenu.edu \"Strategies for Articulating Information in Disaster and Emergency Response Common Operating Pictures\"","site:idl.iscram.org \"Ranking of Social Media Alerts with Workload Bounds\"","site:sciencedirect.com \"Cues facilitating collective sensemaking during emergencies\"","site:iso.org ISO 22320 incident management guidelines information management","site:fema.gov/emergency-managers/nims-components-guidance-tools incident commander authority responsibility NIMS","site:fema.gov \"Incident Commander has overall authority\" NIMS","site:fema.gov emergency operations centers incident command NIMS roles responsibilities","\"Cues facilitating collective sensemaking\" author manuscript PDF","\"Ranking of Social Media Alerts with Workload Bounds in Emergency Operation Centers\" PDF","site:arxiv.org/abs/1809.08489","site:dl.acm.org emergency operations center alert workload information overload"],"sources":[{"source_id":"S1","title":"ICS Position Training, Foundations Course Reference Guide","publisher":"Federal Emergency Management Agency, Emergency Management Institute","url":"https://training.fema.gov/emiweb/is/icsresource/assets/ics_training_reference_guide.pdf","source_class":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","publication_date":"undated current guide","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["A common operating picture should contain key information needed for planning, progress tracking, and decisions.","Essential Elements of Information provide a formal way to filter incident information according to decision relevance.","FEMA warns that ICS organizations commonly receive more information than they can manage and may track data with no identified purpose.","Sensitive, classified, and personally identifiable information require special handling."]},{"source_id":"S2","title":"IS-0200.c Basic Incident Command System for Initial Response: NIMS Overview and ICS Organization","publisher":"Federal Emergency Management Agency, Emergency Management Institute","url":"https://emilms.fema.gov/_is0200c/groups/376.html","source_class":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","publication_date":"undated course edition","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["Incident-command authority derives from law, policy, procedure, or a delegation of authority.","The Incident Commander or Unified Command assigns command staff and retains ultimate responsibility for safe incident management.","Life safety is the first incident priority.","Planning personnel collect, evaluate, and disseminate incident information, while command establishes incident objectives."]},{"source_id":"S3","title":"Strategies for Articulating Information in Disaster and Emergency Response Common Operating Pictures","publisher":"Walden University ScholarWorks","url":"https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/16593/","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"2024-11-12","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["Eight experienced emergency-management IT leaders reported challenges in displaying and sharing critical information through common operating pictures.","Poorly implemented common operating pictures can impede situational awareness and decisions.","The study recommends tailoring common-operating-picture displays to user roles and responsibilities.","The evidence is qualitative and does not test protected empty space or decision-recognition performance."]},{"source_id":"S4","title":"Ranking of Social Media Alerts with Workload Bounds in Emergency Operation Centers","publisher":"2018 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence","url":"https://mimran.me/papers/Ranking_of_Social_Media_Alerts_with_Workload_Bounds_in_Emergency_Operation_Centers.pdf","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"2018-12-03","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["High-volume, high-velocity crisis information can overwhelm EOC personnel's limited attention.","Too many alerts in a short interval can distract multitasking EOC personnel during time-critical events.","The paper evaluated workload-bounded alert ranking using data from six crisis events.","Alert filtering and prioritization are an established comparator, distinct from temporary protected absence around a command decision."]},{"source_id":"S5","title":"Configure an element—ArcGIS Dashboards","publisher":"Esri","url":"https://doc.arcgis.com/en/dashboards/latest/get-started/configure-an-element.htm","source_class":"OFFICIAL_PRODUCT_DOCUMENTATION","publication_date":"undated current documentation","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["ArcGIS Dashboards already provides an element focus mode that lets users expand one element.","The product supports filters, no-data and no-selection labels, captions, and accessible names for screen readers.","These capabilities make a static or interactive prototype technically straightforward.","The documentation does not describe authorized incident-command activation, a persistent safety-alert rail, queued updates, or the proposed rollback logic."]},{"source_id":"S6","title":"Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2","publisher":"World Wide Web Consortium","url":"https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/","source_class":"STANDARD","publication_date":"2024-12-12","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["Dynamic interface states must preserve programmatically determinable names, roles, values, and notifications for assistive technology.","Status messages must be programmatically exposed without unnecessarily taking focus.","Keyboard focus must not be obscured, so spatial whitespace alone cannot carry the clearance state's meaning.","Accessibility conformance and assistive-technology testing are necessary implementation constraints."]},{"source_id":"S7","title":"City of North Port Legislation File 24-1411: WebEOC Subscription Agreement","publisher":"City of North Port, Florida","url":"https://cityofnorthport.legistar.com/ViewReport.ashx?Extra=WithText&GID=408&GUID=F073BD92-C738-495A-8796-97210DBE370F&ID=6894059&M=R&N=Master&Title=Legislation+Details+%28With+Text%29","source_class":"OFFICIAL_ORGANIZATION_DATA","publication_date":"2024-10-22","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["North Port is an identifiable municipal adopter of WebEOC for its EOC and department operations centers.","The city stated that the system would support coordination of life-saving operations, effective response, resource requests, and information sharing.","The approved contract was $25,260 for first-year setup and approximately $11,680-$12,031 for each subsequent annual license.","The platform is proprietary and the procurement required commission, legal, budget, and sole-source review."]},{"source_id":"S8","title":"National Employment and Wage Data by Occupation, May 2025","publisher":"U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics","url":"https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.t01.htm","source_class":"GOVERNMENT_OR_REGULATOR","publication_date":"2026-06","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["May 2025 mean wages were $71.20 per hour for software developers, $56.49 for web and digital-interface designers, and $53.60 for software QA analysts and testers.","Emergency-management directors had a mean annual wage of $102,420.","These wages support resource-equivalent labor estimates but exclude benefits, overhead, vendor margin, participant compensation, and procurement costs."]}],"problem_evidence":{"support":"MODERATE","rationale":"The broad problem is visible: FEMA explicitly warns that ICS organizations commonly receive more information than they can effectively manage, primary research describes limited EOC attention and distracting alert volume, and qualitative research documents COP display and information-sharing difficulties. The exact proposed failure—crowding causing commanders to miss or inconsistently interpret a pending evacuation-zone decision—was not directly measured in the located evidence.","source_ids":["S1","S3","S4"]},"stakeholder_evidence":{"support":"MODERATE","rationale":"North Port's Emergency Management function is an identifiable adopter, and its commission expressly funded WebEOC to coordinate life-saving operations, resource requests, and information sharing. FEMA guidance identifies incident command, planning personnel, and authorized delegates as relevant authorizers. No source expresses demand for this particular protected-clearance feature, and North Port has not agreed to test it.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S7"]},"prior_art":{"proximity":"ADJACENT_PRIOR_ART","closest_analogues":[{"name":"ArcGIS Dashboards element focus mode","similarity":"Expands a selected dashboard element, reducing simultaneous competition from other elements; the same product also supports filters and explicit no-data labels.","remaining_difference":"It is user-invoked element expansion, not an authorized, time-bounded command-decision state with an essential-evidence package, persistent critical-alert rail, recoverable queue, audit trail, and safety-triggered rollback.","source_ids":["S5"]},{"name":"Role-tailored common operating pictures","similarity":"Tailoring displayed COP data to user roles is an evidence-backed way to reduce irrelevant information and improve decision support.","remaining_difference":"Role filtering is normally persistent and role-scoped; the candidate temporarily protects attention around one cross-agency decision and then restores the full view.","source_ids":["S3"]},{"name":"Workload-bounded alert ranking","similarity":"Filters and schedules crisis alerts to respect limited EOC attention, providing a strong salience-and-prioritization comparator.","remaining_difference":"It selects alert quantity and timing rather than creating protected spatial absence around a named decision while keeping critical alerts continuously visible.","source_ids":["S4"]},{"name":"FEMA Essential Elements of Information filtering practice","similarity":"Decision-makers define relevant information, filter data lacking an identified purpose, and use the resulting EEI to update the common operating picture.","remaining_difference":"The guidance establishes information relevance and filtering but does not prescribe the proposed temporary interface state, recoverable queue, meaning-of-absence cue, or comparative recognition test.","source_ids":["S1"]},{"name":"WebEOC municipal common-operating platform","similarity":"An incumbent platform used by municipal EOCs to organize information exchange, resources, and other response information.","remaining_difference":"The official procurement record does not document protected decision clearance or equivalent safety and recovery behavior; proprietary configuration and integration capabilities remain unverified.","source_ids":["S7"]}],"distinctive_claim_remaining":"Compared with retaining all content and adding priority salience—or merely expanding a decision element—a temporary, authorized, explicitly framed, recoverable, and safety-exempt empty region around one command decision will reduce shared decision-identification time without reducing identification accuracy, obscuring essential evidence, increasing missed critical alerts, or increasing materially relevant missed updates.","confidence":"MODERATE"},"implementation_evidence":{"support":"MODERATE","rationale":"Focus mode, filtering, no-data labels, and accessible names are already available in a mainstream dashboard product, so a non-live prototype is technically straightforward. FEMA doctrine supplies a plausible authorization chain, and WCAG supplies testable accessibility constraints. Production feasibility is not established for WebEOC or another target COP: required APIs, alert taxonomy, queue durability, audit and records behavior, permissions, cyber review, and safe classification of essential versus routine content are unknown. Live use would also require local policy and command approval.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S5","S6","S7"]},"scores":{"meaningful_impact":{"score":4,"rationale":"On a 1-5 scale, preventing delay or disagreement around a protective-action decision could materially improve life-safety coordination, but the specific failure prevalence and realized impact remain unmeasured.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S7"]},"stakeholder_pull":{"score":3,"rationale":"A named municipal EOC has funded a COP platform for life-safety coordination, but no adopter has requested or committed to this exact feature.","source_ids":["S7"]},"incremental_advantage":{"score":3,"rationale":"Protected absence plausibly differs from focus expansion, role filtering, and alert ranking, but no comparative test shows an advantage over those simpler approaches.","source_ids":["S3","S4","S5"]},"distinctiveness_plausibility":{"score":3,"rationale":"No direct match to the full authorization, safety-rail, recoverable-queue, meaning-cue, and rollback bundle was located, although its component techniques are established and the search is not exhaustive.","source_ids":["S1","S4","S5"]},"technical_implementability":{"score":4,"rationale":"A synthetic prototype can reuse commonplace dashboard filtering, focus, labeling, logging, and accessible-name mechanisms. Reliable production integration and alert classification remain uncertain.","source_ids":["S5","S6","S8"]},"adoption_authority_feasibility":{"score":3,"rationale":"FEMA defines an incident-command authorization path and North Port demonstrates municipal purchasing and operational ownership. Local command/EOC boundaries, proprietary-platform change control, and multi-agency approval would require negotiated governance.","source_ids":["S2","S7"]},"evidence_readiness":{"score":4,"rationale":"The contrastive claim, comparator displays, outcome measures, safety metrics, rollback rules, and synthetic non-live setting can be specified now. Practitioner recruitment and a target platform sandbox are still needed.","source_ids":["S4","S5","S7"]},"safety_net_benefit":{"score":3,"rationale":"A persistent critical-alert rail, immediate reveal, timeouts, audit preservation, and rollback could provide a useful safety net, but incorrect classification of essential content could create tunnel vision and has not been tested.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S6"]},"scalability":{"score":3,"rationale":"The interaction pattern is software-based and potentially reusable, but every jurisdiction would need decision-role mapping, alert taxonomy, policy configuration, accessibility validation, exercises, and platform-specific integration.","source_ids":["S2","S5","S7"]}},"score_confidence":"MODERATE","costs":{"first_evidence":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"Two interactive synthetic prototypes, protocol and scenario design, one counterbalanced tabletop with 12-24 practitioners, participant compensation, instrumentation, analysis, and an accessibility review.","confidence":"MODERATE","assumptions":["Approximately 160-320 combined hours across interface design, software development, QA, emergency-management review, and research operations.","The prototype uses synthetic data and an existing dashboard framework without proprietary production integration.","BLS direct wages are converted to rounded 2026 resource equivalents with allowance for overhead and participant costs."],"source_ids":["S5","S8"]},"initial_deployment_startup":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Production-grade feature for one EOC sandbox: requirements mapping, permissions, critical-alert taxonomy, recoverable queue, event logging, accessibility, security and records review, vendor configuration, and administrator training.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Approximately 0.5-1.5 combined staff-years across engineering, design, QA, emergency management, security, accessibility, and project management.","The target platform permits extension without replacement or major data migration.","The North Port first-year WebEOC setup price is only a base-platform anchor, not a quote for this feature."],"source_ids":["S6","S7","S8"]},"operational_launch":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"One-jurisdiction, multi-shift launch after sandbox validation, including configured integrations, training, two exercises, operational acceptance testing, rollback rehearsal, documentation, and monitored initial operations.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Launch is limited to one municipal EOC and its existing COP platform.","No new safety-critical hardware, dispatch replacement, or statewide integration is required.","A failed acceptance test returns the system to the unmodified display rather than expanding deployment scope."],"source_ids":["S2","S7","S8"]},"annual_recurring":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"Incremental annual licensing or hosting, configuration maintenance, support, accessibility regression tests, alert-taxonomy review, refresher exercises, and audit-log review for one EOC.","confidence":"MODERATE","assumptions":["North Port's documented recurring base-platform license of about $11,680-$12,031 is a lower anchor.","Incremental maintenance uses roughly 0.1-0.2 staff-year plus one annual exercise.","This excludes major platform replacement, 24/7 vendor incident response, and multi-jurisdiction expansion."],"source_ids":["S7","S8"]}},"verified_pipeline_gates":{"externally_supported_problem":{"status":"YES","reason":"Official guidance and primary research independently support excessive incident information, limited attention, and COP display challenges, although the exact evacuation-decision failure remains unquantified.","source_ids":["S1","S3","S4"]},"externally_credible_adopter_or_authorizer":{"status":"YES","reason":"North Port Emergency Management is a named COP adopter with an approved WebEOC deployment, while FEMA identifies incident command and delegated authority as credible operational authorizers.","source_ids":["S2","S7"]},"distinct_testable_incremental_claim":{"status":"YES","reason":"The candidate can be compared directly against a continuously populated salience-only display and ordinary focus expansion using recognition time, accuracy, missed-update, critical-alert, recovery, and state-interpretation outcomes.","source_ids":["S4","S5"]},"bounded_next_evidence_step":{"status":"YES","reason":"A non-live, synthetic, counterbalanced tabletop can test feasibility and failure modes without transmitting or making an operational decision.","source_ids":["S4","S5","S8"]},"no_unresolved_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"UNCERTAIN","reason":"The synthetic tabletop has a safe authorization and rollback envelope, but live deployment is blocked until a target authority approves the essential-content taxonomy and tests show no critical-alert or relevant-update penalty.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S6"]},"credible_cost_scope_and_range":{"status":"YES","reason":"Broad bands have explicit single-EOC scopes and are anchored by current occupational wages and an official municipal WebEOC setup and recurring-license record. Proprietary customization pricing remains a low-confidence gap.","source_ids":["S7","S8"]}},"next_evidence_step":"Recruit one willing EOC and 12-24 incident-management practitioners for a preregistered, non-live, counterbalanced tabletop using the same synthetic incident timeline. Compare three interfaces: the unmodified crowded display, a salience-only priority decision card over the full display, and protected decision clearance. Randomize interface order and rotate decision scenarios. Measure time and correctness for identifying the active decision, deadline, accountable authority, and essential evidence; critical-alert detection; recognition of designated relevant routine updates; time and errors when revealing queued content; mistaken data-failure interpretations; NASA-TLX; and forced rollbacks. Before testing, have command, planning, safety, accessibility, and records representatives approve the synthetic essential-versus-routine taxonomy. Falsify or stop the candidate if it misses any designated critical alert that a comparator detects, causes more than a 5-percentage-point absolute increase in relevant-update misses, causes more than 10% of trials to be interpreted as data failure after training, prevents queued-content recovery within five seconds in more than 10% of trials, removes evidence judged essential by any approving role, or fails to improve median decision-identification time by at least 15% relative to the salience-only comparator while maintaining accuracy. Treat results as feasibility evidence, not a population effect estimate.","blocking_evidence":["No representative field observation quantifies how often crowded COP displays obscure a current command decision.","No comparative practitioner test evaluates protected absence against full-display salience, focus expansion, or alert ranking.","No named adopter has expressed demand for or agreed to test the specific protected-clearance feature.","No validated, multi-agency taxonomy distinguishes routine, relevant, essential, legally required, and safety-critical content for suppression decisions.","WebEOC or other target-platform APIs, queue durability, permissions, auditability, failure behavior, and customization prices were not verified.","No jurisdiction-specific accessibility, cybersecurity, public-records, privacy, labor-workflow, or command-policy review has been completed.","No evidence establishes safe activation frequency, maximum duration, timeout behavior, or training burden."],"research_disposition":"PARTNERED_RESEARCH_PROGRAM","world_novelty_boundary":"This bounded web search found adjacent techniques and practices but no direct source documenting the complete proposed bundle. That does not establish world novelty. Patentability, freedom to operate, exhaustive product coverage, market size, problem prevalence, and realized impact were not measured.","arm":"PROPOSAL_FIRST","candidate_version":0,"controller_recommendation":{"action":"STOP_EMPIRICAL_RESEARCH_NEEDED","repairable":true,"material_progress_observed":true,"progress_targets":["Secure written interest from one EOC authority and access to practitioners and a non-production sandbox.","Preregister the three-interface protocol, outcome definitions, feasibility thresholds, and falsifiers.","Obtain cross-role approval of the synthetic essential-versus-routine content taxonomy before participant testing.","Demonstrate zero incremental critical-alert misses and acceptable recovery and failure-interpretation rates in the tabletop.","Estimate the decision-recognition contrast against the salience-only comparator and document whether a powered follow-up is justified.","Verify target-platform APIs, logging, queue restoration, access control, accessibility behavior, and vendor customization cost.","Complete jurisdiction-specific command, safety, cybersecurity, privacy, accessibility, procurement, and records reviews before any live pilot."],"reason":"Web evidence supports the underlying overload problem, a credible adopter class, technical prototypability, and a distinct comparative claim. It cannot determine whether protected absence improves practitioner performance or safely preserves peripheral awareness; those questions require recruited practitioners, proprietary platform access, and live interactive testing in a non-operational exercise."}}