Date: June 16, 2022

To:
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employees and supervisors

From: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Subject: Severe weather warning notification settings awareness
Distribution List: Supervisors, their subordinates and Publishers at NOAA

Technology is always changing. This change can be and usually is for the good but regardless
of the any new technologies intention it will always cause problems in its development. In the
past the main source for weather alerts and warnings for the general public have been radio and
television but, in the present, a newer technology has been added to this list of main sources.
Smartphones are ubicates today and a lot of people use them to get their information. The
problem with smartphones is that many people only get their information from them so many
people aren’t even aware of any possible severe weather conditions that may happen. One
solution that smart phone manufacturers have implemented sending out severe weather
notifications based on the user’s location, but these notifications do come with their issues
hence this memo. We believe these issues are creating a lack of warning for the general public.

Summary
Even though severe weather notifications can be very helpful in informing the general public
about severe weather conditions they come with a lot of issues. The notifications are dependent
on multiple different settings than can cause the system to work incorrectly and possibly not
even work at all. These settings can and usually are different between different devices and
older versions of those devices. This is why the NOAA has been working to develop multiple
different formats of guides for many different types of smartphones to help users set the correct
settings. It is recommended that employees and supervisors should all try to stay up to date with
newer technologies. If we can stay informed as a team we could better provide guides for newer
technologies that may be developed in the future.

Problems With Setting the Correct Settings for Severe Weather Warning
Notifications
Problems caused by the users
One of the biggest problems with the entire notifications system is that it is based on
current geographical location of the user. Designing the notifications system in this way
can be very helpful to the user but many users disable the ability for their smartphones
to be able to track their current geographical location. They do this for multiple reasons
such as privacy and to save battery. To solve this issue most manufacturers, allow
users to be selective for what applications and systems use their geographical location.
This adds complexity and we have to inform these users how they can save their
batteries as well as keep their privacy.

Problems caused by the smartphones themselves

Another problem with these severe weather warning notifications are the smartphones
themselves. There are many different manufacturers, and they all use different types
operating systems. Most manufactures use a variation of the android operating system,
which is an opensource operating system, but these variations are different enough that
an inexperienced android user could become confused. The other challenge that the
smartphones bring is the age of the devices themselves. Even with multiple different
versions of a smartphones operating system such as of iOS, apple’s operating system
for their smartphones, there can be differences that can make it more difficult for a user
to understand how to set the correct settings to get the notifications.
How to combat these problems
The biggest problem to solve is the differences between the multiple different operating
systems used by the general public. The best way to combat this problem is to develop
multiple different guides for the most used operating systems. Once these guides are
created, they only have to be maintained for marginal changes that happen in the future
and only new guides have to be made for newer smartphones that come to market. This
is why many employees and supervisors should stay informed on newer technology so
that they could have a better understanding how to inform the general public. To solve
the problems caused by users or manufacturers, awareness must be created and
spread around the general public so that they understand that while the users may be
saving some battery life this could come at the cost of missing important information.

Conclusion
Once the different guides have been created for the major smartphones all that left to
do is spread awareness of not only the problem of the incorrect settings but the solution
to fix these settings. While these guides will be useful and can even save lives this
problem will never be fixed. New technogies will be developed and new guilds along
with them. This will be the most challenging part of the problem for the National
Weather Service not only to inform the current general population with the current
technology but to keep them informed as new technologies as well as inform newer
users of these types of settings.
Recommendations
Many of the managers and their subordinates should keep up to date with new technologies
coming out such as wearable technology. These types of technologies could become an
extension or even a new source of information for the general public. They should also work to
gather to develop new ways to spread awareness so that more of the general public can be
informed of these settings and their possible problems.