HR2008-01 Unable to see the received message?! Message board service for the case of disaster

Introduction


Top page example of disaster messaging board on Docomo(F900ic).	Top page example of disaster messaging board on au(W43H).	Top page example of disaster messaging board on Softbank(824SH).	Top page example of disaster messaging board on Willcom(WX310K).

This year in June, 2008, we have had a huge earthquake centering around north eastern part of Japan. It is "Iwate and Miyagi midland earthquake". I assume it is still fresh in many of your minds. Many people have gotten caught in the earthquake. Some are still missing, and their families are waiting for them to return, in a very painful feeling.

It is helpful if you can check families and friends in afflicted area by phone, but because the line gets very busy, it is hard to get connected. Given this factor, there is something called "Disaster messaging board" on the net of mobile phone. The operation of this service will start and become available when the earthquake shakes more than lower level of 6.

Task

10 staffs from our office have volunteered to become participants and tried this messaging board for disaster. To make them work on with some tension from emergency situation, we have set couple tasks.

[Task 1]
The earthquake of level 6 has occurred last night before dawn, at --- prefecture, and has given huge damage to the area. You are trying to contact your company president (Obata) by calling him several times, but cannot get hold of him, nor find out whether he is safe or not. Your friend tells you that the disaster messaging board is available through the mobile phone, so you decide to use this service and check whether there is a message from Obata.
Please find this service by using your mobile phone, and check if there is a message from Obata. Only information you have is his phone number(090-XXXX-XXXX).

(The goal for task 1: Check that there is no message on Docomo's messaging board for disaster)

[Task 2]
You also cannot get hold of your co-worker, who has gone to the same afflicted are for his vacation, and check whether he is safe of not. Please find this service from your mobile phone, and check if there is a message from your co-worker. Only information you have is his phone number(070-XXXX-XXXX).

(The goal for task 2: Check his message, "I am fine in Morioka city now", on Wilcom's messaging board for disaster.)

Result from the tasks

Almost all the participants know about the existence of the service, but only one out of 10 has actually used this before.

Well, here is the task result. Since one out of 10 participants have used this service before, we would like to show the result of 9 participants.

7 out of 9 participants have completed both task 1 and 2.

The reason is same with why the participant A who has not been able to complete task 1, and with participant B who has not been able to complete task 2. Both participants have only checked the disaster messaging board of their own carrier.

Participant C has not been able to complete both task 1 and 2 because instead of accessing to "disaster messaging board", he has called directly to "disaster messaging dial".

Unexpected catch of the service !?

Actually, each carrier has been operating this service. Did you know that? In other word, if you do not know the other person's carrier, you need to check disaster-messaging board of all carriers in order to find his/her message. Participant A has checked the disaster messaging board of own carrier only. Because participant B has a Docomo mobile phone, which is same carrier as what Obata has, he has been able to complete task 1, however, because the carrier is different for task 2, he has not been able to complete that task.

This fact may cause us not notice even the disaster victim has sent the message. All 7 participants, who have been able to complete both tasks, first have all thought once they enter the disaster victim's phone number, it will find the message from every carrier. After they have used the service, 4 out of 7 who has succeeded say it is a pain in the neck to try all carriers when the other person's carrier is unknown.

When you enter the other person's phone number into the disaster messaging board of your own carrier and begin searching, and if there is no message has been registered, you get the result saying, "nothing has been registered". You will also find a link of disaster messaging board of other carriers toward bottom of the screen. If the other person's carrier is different from yours, you will access to it, and check again. It will be fine if you notice the link below when the search result is displayed, but because the screen of mobile phone is small, you may only be able to see the search result of your carrier, and miss the link below, which may hide from the screen. Because participant A has a mobile phone with small screen, he has not been able to notice the link, and participant C has also not been able to notice that there is link for other carriers.

Participant C has called to "disaster messaging dial"(171), which has similar name with "disaster messaging board". Both are the service for the case of disaster with similar system, but the contents are very different. Disaster messaging dial is a voice answering service, and disaster-messaging board is a service on the net. Because they have similar name, it is confusing.

I get more comments from the participants, which I will need more space to show, but the most comment I get is "it is bothersome to enter the phone number from the beginning each time I access to the messaging board of each carrier".

Impression

I assume even though there are many including me who know this service, surprisingly few may have actually used it. As we find out from the tasks, if you use it for the first time, you may not be able to access to the messaging board, or not being able to check the message even there is one. Because the service is something to be relied on when any disaster occurs, I think it should be a service that anybody can use without anxiety.

Also, through these tasks, I have found many different services other than the registration of safety information and confirmation. For example, there is a service such as, if you register the other person beforehand, when you register your safety information to the messaging-board, it will send email to the other person automatically.

Because we never know when you will encounter to a disaster in future, I have thought about using this service. Other than that, it seems that carriers are providing their own services.

Trial service of this disaster messaging-board is available at 1st of every month. Why don't you take this opportunity to give it a try? By the way, today, the 1st of September is national disaster exercise day in Japan.