Citizen’s Helper

Existing computer programs that support Title III activities have tended to focus on the needs of the reporting industry or, in a few cases, upon the needs of users concerned about the emergency planning and response provisions of the law. This paper describes one such system as well as a supplementary "Citizen s Helper" module designed to implement the intent as well as the letter of the statute. It is novel in its intention to provide intelligent assistance to a lay, rather than a professional, audience. 

The first section of the paper describes the early version of the emergency response software, a brief description of the law, and the ways in which the existing software was modified to meet the needs of the law. The second part describes the Citizen s Helper program, focusing especially on features needed to ensure that citizens can have access to and make use of the data provided under Title III. Part 3 considers possible expansions of the Citizen s Helper as 0097—6156/90/0431—0108 06.00/0 1990 American Chemical Society... 

CAMEO II s Presentation Mechanism. The nature of HyperCard is essential to the effectiveness of CAMEO II and the Citizen s Helper. HyperCard allows users to choose among many different paths through a collection of information that may include graphics and fairly sophisticated computations as well as standard text. 

The overall effect is to allow a user to pursue his/her interests as they arise. A list of chemicals stored at a nearby facility might prompt either a request for a list of other facilities storing a particular chemical or a request for information about the health effects of one of the chemicals. Changes in the user s interests are to be expected as an information-gathering session progresses. The Citizen s Helper stack anticipates this need for flexibility by... 

FIGURE 1. The Citizen s Helper as gateway to the CAMEO II system. The arrows represent the retrieval of information from CAMEO for display in the Citizen s Helper stack. 

FIGURE 2. A sample of the Citizen s Helper stack s introduction to its buttons and the information they elicit. 

FIGURE 3. The flexible information display mechanism in the Citizen s Helper stack. The user first requested the list of facilities in the ZIP code shown, and then the facility information, shown at the right, for the facility shown highlighted. 

Speed in carrying out the searches is a serious issue, given the size of some of the CAMEO stacks, in spite of the efficient search algorithms embedded in HyperCard a clever human looking for "xylene" in a 2674-page encyclopedia would start at the back of the book, but HyperCard always starts from the beginning of the stack. The Citizen s Helper makes use, wherever possible, of unique identifying numbers for cards in stacks. We created index tables of chemicals by health effect these make it possible to find the health information about xylene more rapidly than even the clever human could. 

Access for All Citizens. The Citizen s Helper stack also tries to accommodate the most naive micro-computer user. At the first screen, the user need only be able to find the return key on the keyboard in order to transfer to a card that explains about moving the mouse and clicking its button, working with scrolling text fields, and other features of HyperCard. For the first several cards, it is only necessary to move the mouse s on-screen image to a particular part of the screen in order to proceed to the next card. The experienced user is offered alternative ways of achieving purposeful navigation. 

The Citizen s Helper s Future. The Citizen s Helper has evolved from a stack that demonstrated the feasibility of various search and retrieval functions, to one in which many stable indexed lists of... 

FIGURE 5 A guide to the kinds of information available with the aid of the Citizen s Helper stack. 

The Citizen s Helper could also serve as the vehicle for much needed research on the kinds of information citizens want from the Title III data, and on the effects that the mode of presentation has on their perception of risk or ability to ameliorate a hypothetical (or real) situation. The data concerning citizens information needs could be elicited simply by adding scripts that recorded the actions taken by information seekers. The effects of mode of presentation would be obtained by devising several forms of delivering the same information. 

Development of the Citizen s Helper was funded in part by the Bauman Foundation. Copies of this program, which can be readily used by anyone who owns CAMEO II, are available from the author at cost. 

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