Solution to Increase Safety

During Pullmans Snowy Season

at Washington State University:
A Recommendation Report

Prepared for: Patricia Cady

Technical and Professional Writing Professor
Washington State University

Prepared by: Nicole Barton, English 402 Student

Anders Lindberg, English 402 Student and Pullman Resident
Margaret Noble, English 402 Student
Yilun Xu, English 402 Student and Pullman Resident

April 9, 2017

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Date: April 9, 2017
To: Patricia Cady, Technical and Professional Writing Professor, WSU
From: Nicole Barton, English 402 Student
Anders Lindberg, English 402 Student and Pullman Resident
Margaret Noble, English 402 Student
Yilun Xu, English 402 Student and Pullman Resident
Subject: Recommendation Report to Increase Safety During the Snowy Season at WSU

Attached is the report for our study, Solution to Increase Safety During Pullmans Snowy Season
at Washington State University: A Recommendation Report. We completed the tasks described
in the project planning from March 2017: researched the snow cleaning method currently used in
Pullman, studied how Washington State Universitys Facilities Services Department
communicates to students and faculty their progress in clearing roads and sidewalks, and sent out
surveys to Pullman residents who attend and/or work at WSU.

To carry out these tasks, we first reviewed the Facilities Services/Operations Snow Removal
Operations Guidelines WSU Pullman Campus (updated as of September 8, 2016) to understand
how snow removal and communication to residents is currently being handled. In this document,
we discovered their ongoing procedures, heavy equipment usage, and safety guidelines. We then
surveyed Pullman residents to understand what product they believe would help make the campus
safer during heavy snow conditions.

Our main findings are that the WSU Pullman campus has sufficient snow clearing procedures and
equipment to handle the conditions. The major component missing is real-time communication to
students and faculty regarding current road and sidewalk conditions.

We recommend WSU utilize the website weve created at www.wsuliveweatherupdates.com to

communicate real-time campus snow conditions. With the inclusion of live-feed webcams and
facilities staff constantly communicating their progress, students and staff utilizing the campus
will be better equipped to plan their days and travel to their destinations safely. In order to limit
the costs associated with maintaining this website, we recommend this become a project within
Web Development (CPTS 489) and IOS App Development (CPTS 479), courses within the
Computer Science Department of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
These courses require projects in which students must create websites and apps, so implementing
this plan through these courses would be cost effective and simple.

We appreciate the trust you have shown in inviting us to participate in this phase of the feasibility
study, and we look forward to working with you on any follow-up activities. If you have any
questions or comments, please contact Yilun Xu at yilun.xu@wsu.edu.

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 Table of Contents

Executive Summary 4

Introduction 5

Research Methods 5

Task #1: Determine target audience and conduct a survey to determine need
for website 5
Task #2: Determine a platform for the website, layout, usability, and

utilize secondary research 5

Task #3: Determine Marketing Methods 6

Results 6

Task #1: Determine target audience and conduct a survey to determine need
for website 6
Task #2: Determine a platform for the website, layout, usability, and

utilize secondary research 6

Task #3: Determine Marketing Methods 7

Conclusions 7

Recommendations 8

Appendices 10

Appendix A: wsuliveweatherupdates.weebly.com 10

Appendix B: Survey Data 10

References 11

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 Executive Summary

To determine the best way to increase safety during Pullmans snowy season at Washington State
University, we first needed to understand how the Facilities Services department currently
functions and how they strive to increase safety at the Pullman campus during adverse weather
conditions. Upon completing our research and studies, our main findings are that the WSU
Pullman campus has sufficient snow clearing procedures and equipment to handle the conditions.
The major component missing is real-time communication to students and faculty regarding
current road and sidewalk conditions. The current Facilities Services department website has a
dedicated section for Winter Snow Removal, but it is more focused on what areas are not cleared
rather than providing real-time information for areas that are. Pullman residents who utilize the
WSU campus have expressed extreme concerns regarding this lack of information since it often
interrupts their ability to maneuver the campus, including being able to make it to class and/or
work on time if even at all. In conclusion, we recommend a website be built to communicate
real-time campus snow conditions. With the inclusion of live feed webcams and facilities staff
constantly updating their progress, students and staff utilizing the campus will be more able to plan
their days and travel to their destinations safely. In order to limit the costs associated with building
this website, we recommend this become a project due in a WSU Digital Technology and Culture
class with at least three website options being submitted as choices. We believe that creating this
website will significantly increase the safety during Pullmans snowy season at Washington State
University.

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 Introduction

During the winter, WSU experiences severe snow storms. Due to the severe weather conditions,
students and faculty members experience difficulties in their commute to the campus. Currently,
WSU has a list of areas on campus where snow maintenance is done. Although the website is
helpful in informing students and faculty members about snow maintenance, it does not provide
information on campus road and sidewalk conditions. Therefore, our team decided to create a
website for students and faculty members, that will provide real-time information by providing
live feed via webcams and announcements of campus road conditions. Our websites goal is to
track the cleanup progress and current state of individual roads or parts of the campus affected by
snow. Also, the purpose of our website is to not only provide students and faculty members with
up to date campus road conditions but to prevent ongoing safety issues caused by the snow and
unawareness of snow-covered areas.

Research Methods

We began our research by determining what information was needed to create a user-friendly
website for our target audience. For starters, to determine the need for our site we began by
determining our target audience and conducted a survey. Following our survey, we decided on a
platform and layout for our website. To create our product, we utilized secondary research from
WSU Facilities Services site. Finally, for the website to be useful we needed to determine
marketing methods. Therefore, we divided our research into three tasks:

Task #1: Determine our target audience and conduct a survey to determine need for website.
To determine our target audience, we utilized secondary research such as WSUs enrollment and
employment statistics. Our target audience are students and faculty members. After determining
our target audience, we conducted a short survey on March 21, 2017, with 10 students and 10
faculty members, to determine the need of our website. Participants were asked the following
information:
1. Student or faculty member, their form of commute (on campus or transportation), and
travel time
2. Are they late or on time to classes following snow storms?
3. Use of weather applications
4. Would they like to see a site that provides campus roads conditions?

Task #2: Determine a platform for the website, layout, usability, and utilize secondary research
To create our website, we knew we needed a platform that would be easily accessible on a PC,
tablet, and mobile phone. We researched several website builders that were free and user-friendly.
Once we decided on a platform, we created a simple layout that was easy to read and maneuver.
We also considered design concerns that could be problematic to the site, such as the point person
to update the site and installation of webcams that would provide campus road conditions. Lastly,

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we conducted secondary research from the WSU Facilities Services website to understand WSUs
snow removal policy and routes.

Task #3: Determine Marketing Methods

To successfully launch our website, we knew we needed to create a strategic marketing plan. Based
on social media trends and WSUs utilization of social media sites, we researched popular social
media sites that students typically use for campus news. Once we determined which social media
platform students accessed most, we directed most of our marketing to those platforms.

Results

After conducting our research, we found that WSU would benefit from our website, which is
illustrated through the following tasks.

Task #1: Determine our target audience and conduct a survey to determine need for website.
Our research found that students and faculty members would be our target audience for a few
reasons. For starters, the Pullman campus has 20,043 students enrolled (Quick Facts 2017) and
6,130 faculty members (Employee Headcount 2016). Due to the statistics, we found our website
would be beneficial to their commute and safety because of the frequency and need for commuting
on campus. Aside from the statistics, we felt we needed to conduct a survey to understand how
much of a need students had for our website (see Appendix A for survey results figure).
According to our survey, 90% of our participants voted Yes on our website. Of the participants
that voted Yes, 50% of the participants were faculty members that equally lived on and off
campus, were frequently late, and used weather applications. Whereas, 25% of the participants
were students that lived off campus, often late, and used weather applications. Also, 15% of
participants were students who lived on campus, often late, and used weather applications. Lastly,
the 10% of our participants who voted No were students who lived on campus and stated they
were almost always on time despite weather conditions.

Task #2: Determine a platform for the website, layout, usability, and utilize secondary research
When determining a platform for our site, we considered the following design concerns: layout,
usability, and convenience. We knew we needed to create a website that would be easy to read,
navigate, and provide information quickly to our audience. Therefore, we chose Weebly as a
platform for our site. We felt Weebly was suitable for our target audience because our audience
would be able to access our website via laptops, tablets, and mobile phones. We tested Weebly on
various devices such as Apple and Android phones and found the site to load and function quickly.
For our layout, we went for a minimalist look because we did not want to jeopardize the users
visibility, especially when viewing on a mobile phone. For the installation of the webcams, we
found that WSU has webcams installed around the campus construction sites (Experience.WSU
2017). Therefore, the installation of webcams would not pose a problem for the university. Lastly,

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to enhance usability we divided the campus into two regions which will indicate the corresponding
locations which would help users to locate their destinations quickly and easily.
Our secondary research primarily focused on WSUs Facilities Services department website. We
found that the university provides a snow route list and has a snow removal policy in place. The
no snow removal routes are indicated throughout campus either with a visible freestanding sign or
rope (No Snow Removal 2016). For the areas that are maintained, the university removes main
arterial walkways first and then focuses on other prioritized sidewalks (Snow Removal Policy
2017). The snow removal policy and snow routes list allowed us to determine what regions were
priority to creating our website.

Task #3: Determine Marketing Methods

To ensure the success of our website, we created a marketing plan to educate our audience about
our product. To create our marketing plan, we researched social media platforms that WSU
typically uses to make announcements. In our research, we found that WSU has a Twitter,
Instagram, and Facebook account. WSUs twitter account, @WSUPullman, has 33,200 followers
and tweets around the clock (Twitter 2017). WSUs Instagram account, @WSUPullman, has
24,900 followers and adds a post every day or two (Instagram 2017). Lastly WSUs Facebook
page, Washington State University, has 92,621 likes and adds a post every few hours (Facebook
2017). Therefore, we determined that we would utilized WSUs Facebook and Instagram to
promote our website due their number of followers and frequency in posting. We felt using these
two platforms would allow us to reach our target audience more quickly.

Conclusion

Due to our substantial research, we can conclude that WSU is in need of our snow maintenance
live stream website. WSU's Pullman campus experiences significant snowstorms during winter
months. Typically, these snowstorms result in significant delays. While the University has a
system in place for snow removal and communicates these routes via the Facilities Services
website, the information can be communicated more effectively to those who are affected.
Therefore, we decided to create a website which provides a live stream of the campus and live
updates of campus road conditions (see Appendix A). To determine how much of a need there was
for our site, we decided to survey 20 people: 10 students and 10 faculty members. After completing
our study, we found that 18 of the participants felt our website would create a safer environment
and improve their daily commute. Following our study, we utilized secondary research such as
website platform testing, reviewing WSU's snow removal policy and routes, and WSU's use of
social media for marketing to help build a successful, user-friendly website. Overall, we found that
by creating a site that live streams road conditions and provides live updates not only follows
current tech trends but provides users with instant access to their destinations.

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 Recommendations

As time progresses, needs and wants will change along with available technology. Maybe the
needs of the students and faculty will change, or snow removal will somehow become easier, it is
difficult to speculate what could change. What will more than likely not change, however, is the
need to continually make updates to the website to increase easy usability. Much like how Google
Maps has continually changed since it was initially released for use, this website could continue
to expand its reach and user-friendliness. Updates should be scheduled on an annual basis, outside
of the winter months, to improve the website to new standards before it will be required again once
the next winter arrives. If necessary, updates can be made more often, but that would be dependent
on the effectiveness of the website at the time and the necessity of an update, or from user feedback.
To help with creating more effective updates to further improve the website, having a feedback
section on the website or contact information for the website operators, the IT department in
collaboration with the Facilities Services Department, can allow users to leave their thoughts,
feedback, and recommendations for the website to be looked over and discussed by the
collaborative team. The fact that this service would be seasonal makes it all the more beneficial
for continual use in the future.

Out of the majority of each year while there isnt snow on the ground, updates and improvements
can be added without maintenance issues occurring while the service is required in the winter
months. Until the snow-clearing issues of Pullman cease, which is highly unlikely in the
foreseeable future, there will be a constant need for this service. This obviously means that
maintenance, expansion, and updates will also be necessary. To run this website, like previously
stated, will be the IT department in a conjoined effort with the Facilities Services Department. The
Facilities Services Department is the main entity to deal with this issue to begin with, making them
an important contributor and role-player with this website. The IT department is better suited in
supplying the information to students and faculty through the website as well as maintaining it
throughout its existence until the Facilities Services Department has a trained and dedicated staff
for the task, which they may never have. For the time being and for the immediate future of this
project, it is in the best interests of the University as well as these departments to make a
collaborative effort in maintaining and updating the service.

Eventually this site would become mobile friendly, more so than it would initially be, either
through use of a web browser on a mobile device or through the introduction of an application. If
eventually made into an application, then this service could provide notifications for areas on and
around campus that might affect the user, increasing its effectiveness. Once again, to be cost
effective within this project, using the previously mentioned Computer Science courses to create
an application for the service as well would be a good first step. Once that is done, the reins would
be handed to this collaborative group to maintain and update, the same as the website. The success
of this service cannot be easily measured, but would undoubtedly help faculty and students save

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time in planning how to get to, from, and throughout campus. It gives them the information they
need to make decisions that would help save them time and effort, help them sort out their
schedules.

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 Appendices

Appendix A:
Wsuliveweatherupdates.weebly.com

*Currently a basic example of what the real website could eventually look like*

Appendix B:

Figure 1 - Survey Data

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 References

Experience.WSU. ExperienceWSU, experience.wsu.edu/campus/Webcams.aspx. Accessed 4

Apr. 2017.

Facilities Services. Administration | WSU Facilities Services,

facilitiesservices.wsu.edu/administration.aspx. Accessed 3 Apr. 2017.

Facilities Services/ Operations Snow Removal Operational Guidelines WSU Pullman Campus.
WSU Facilities Services,
facilitiesservices.wsu.edu/Resources/pdf/SnowRemovalPolicy17.pdf. Accessed 1 April
2017.

Institutional Research. Washington State University, ir.wsu.edu/employees/. Accessed 1 April

2017.

No Snow Removal Areas. WSU Facilities Services,

facilitiesservices.wsu.edu/Resources/pdf/SnowRemovalClosed17.pdf. Accessed 2 Apr.
2017.

Quick Facts. Washington State University, wsu.edu/about/facts/. Accessed 5 Apr. 2017.

Road Report. Simon Fraser University, www.sfu.ca/security/sfuroadconditions/. Accessed 1

Apr. 2017.

Washington State University. Facebook,

www.facebook.com/WSUPullman/?rf=112254955456765. Accessed 4 Apr. 2017.

WSU Pullman (@WSUPullman). Twitter, twitter.com/wsupullman. Accessed 4 Apr. 2017.

WSU Pullman (@Wsupullman) Instagram, www.instagram.com/wsupullman/. Accessed 4 Apr.

2017.

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