The emergence of the Digital Humanitarian Volunteer (DHV) movements when disaster strikes have drawn the attention of researchers and practitioners in the emergency management and humanitarian domain. While there are established players in this rapidly developing field, there are still unresolved challenges, including accessibility of their digital tools and platforms. The purposes of this paper are twofold. First, it describes the background, impact and future potential of the DHV movement, and discusses the importance of universal design for the digital tools and platforms used for crowdsourcing of crisis information. Second, this paper shows how lack of concern for universal design and accessibility can have significant negative impact on the practical use of these tools, not only for people with disabilities, but also for anyone and in particular the DHVs who may be affected by situational disabilities in the field in an emergency situation. The insights from the findings serve as feedback on how to improve digital humanitarian response by broadening the base of potential volunteers as well as making the related tools and platforms more reliably usable in the field.

Disaster information sharing tools are an important aspect of disaster resilience, and it is of utmost importance that these tools are accessible and usable for as many potential users as possible. In this paper, we evaluate the accessibility of a selection of tools for crowdsourcing disaster situation information. As our evaluation shows that the selected tools are not fully accessible, we provide recommendations for mitigation, as well as highlight the importance of further research in this area. With today's development on the Information and Communication Technology (ICT), both scientists and practitioners concur that appropriate ICT technology can improve disaster management and crisis communication in all cycles: preparedness, response and recovery in terms of the needs of PWDs [3, 4]. The accessibility of crisis communication tools intended for enhancing societal resilience has not yet been fully taken into account. These tools are particularly important for reaching out to the vulnerable groups in the societies, including PWD, especially in highly populated and dense areas such as cities. The Hyogo Framework Action (HFA) outlines the importance for building the resilience culture in all levels, and encourages pro-active community participation [5]. Resilience itself has been defined as "the capacity of a system, community or society potentially exposed to hazards to adapt, by resisting or changing in order to reach and maintain an acceptable level of functioning and structure"[6]. However, HFA has little attention toward the needs of PWD although Phibbs et. al. [17], for instance, try to clarify the linkage between emergency management agencies working with PWD and the HFA. The issue of PWD are defined better in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) [7] which also addresses themes linking the PWD and universal design. First theme is related to universal design with support tools and build environment. Ramps, for instance, assists PWD in disasters, such as fastening the evacuation of people with wheelchairs. With universal design, the build environment should not put the vulnerable people in a disadvantaged group in a disaster. Second theme emphasizes inclusivity of disaster preparedness, response and mitigation activities. This approach incorporates the needs and viewpoints of other marginalized groups and potentially strengthens overall resilience. Third theme deals with accessible technology and communication during the disasters. Fourth theme highlights the importance of stakeholders such as individual person with disabilities and disability organizations to collaborate during the emergency planning and recovery. In brief, the concepts of inclusion, universal design and accessibility have been included in SFDRR to empower people with disabilities in disaster and eventually strengthen the community resilience in general. In the context of community engagement, the role of ICT tools to enable the society in general to adapt and recover from hazards and stresses is evident as reflected ...

The primary objectives of this article are to give a systematic overview of the current state of the emerging research field of Universal Design of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Emergency Management, and to highlight high-impact research opportunities to ensure that the increasing introduction of ICT in Emergency Management can contribute to removing barriers instead of adding more barriers, in particular for the elderly and people with disabilities. A systematic review on various literature with respect to Universal Design, ICT and Emergency Management between 2008 to 2018 was employed in this study, and reviewed systematically using a predefined framework. The ultimate goal of this effort is to answer the following questions: 1) How strong is the coverage of research on Universal Design of ICT in Emergency Management in the different categories of Emergency Management ICT tools? 2) What potential next steps in research on Universal Design of ICT in Emergency Management have the highest potential impact in terms of improved Emergency Management and reduced Disaster Risk? We identify a set of gaps in the literature, indicating that there are some challenges where Universal Design is not so much taken into account in the technology development to support the different phases of the crisis management cycle. We also derive a research agenda based on areas that are missing in the literature, to serve a future research in the area of universal design and Emergency Management.

While Universal Design principles have been adopted in many areas to ensure that products and services are usable for the broadest possible diversity of users, there is still an open area when it comes to the emergency management domain. This article aims at providing a systematic overview of the current state of the emerging research field of Universal Design of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Emergency Management, and to highlight high-impact research opportunities to ensure that the increasing introduction of ICT in Emergency Management can contribute to removing barriers instead of adding more barriers, in particular for the elderly and people with disabilities. A systematic review on relevant literature on Universal Design, ICT and Emergency Management between 2008 and 2020 was employed using predefined frameworks, to answer the following questions: (1) Who are the target audiences (stakeholders) in research on Universal Design of ICT in Emergency Management in the different categories of Emergency Management ICT tools, and to what degree is Human-Centred Design and Universal Design taken into account? (2) What are the most important challenges and gaps in research on Universal Design of ICT in Emergency Management? We identify a set of gaps in the literature, indicating that there are some challenges where Universal Design is still limitedly addressed in technology development. We also derive promising future research topics based on areas that are missing in the literature.