Emergency messaging is crucial in saving lives and avoiding property damage during natural or human-made disasters. Advancements in digital technologies have expanded the ability of emergency managers to reach citizens, particularly through the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system, which notifies citizens in a specific geographic area via their own mobile devices. There have been studies from the perspective of citizens, but little research has been conducted from the perspective of the message senders and focusing on the technology they use. This study aims to better understand the perspective of alerting authorities by examining a case where a participatory design (PD) approach is utilized to create a digital technology that allows alerting authorities to write messages more efficiently and effectively. We seek to understand the processes for implementing effective PD in a technology application used for emergency messaging and also investigate stakeholders' needs and expectations, as well as the role of knowledge sharing during the design processes.
