Back to the Earth (BTOD)
2026
OASIS: Heatwave Education Web App
OASIS is a mobile-first heatwave safety platform designed for delivery riders and other outdoor workers. It combines real-time heat-risk information, self-assessments, practical safety education, and participation incentives to help users recognize symptoms early and take safer action during extreme heat.
Overview
Turning Extreme Heat into a Field-Ready Safety Habit for Delivery Riders
Oasis helps delivery riders stay safe during extreme heat by turning safety education into a short, gamified mobile journey they can complete between deliveries. Riders measure their heat-response readiness with a score card, watch a education video, run self-diagnosis check-ins for heat-illness symptoms, and earn rewards as they move through three sequential missions.
The Impact
The platform reframes heatwave safety from a passive leaflet into an active, trackable habit. A real-time operator dashboard surfaces participation and reward status at a glance, while self-diagnosis check-ins and a post-program satisfaction survey give organizers field-level insight into rider risk — connecting frontline workers to concrete protective resources and closing the gap between awareness and action.
Problem
Heatwave warnings were available, but riders still lacked a practical way to act on them.
Delivery riders spend long hours on the road, where heat exposure changes with temperature, humidity, working hours, physical condition, and location. Yet most public heatwave information remained general and passive. It could warn workers that the day was dangerous, but it did not help them interpret early symptoms or decide when to rest, hydrate, cool down, or seek help.
Existing heat-safety education was also often delivered as one-time guidance, disconnected from riders’ daily routines. Static information could improve awareness temporarily, but it provided little support for repeated self-assessment, preventive action, or tracking whether knowledge translated into safer behavior.
The challenge was therefore not simply to provide more information. Riders needed a mobile-first system that could turn heat-risk awareness into a practical daily workflow: learn essential response actions, check their symptoms and condition, understand their current risk, and repeat preventive behaviors while working in the field.
Data Architecture
Connecting real-time heat risk, user activity, and field operations in one system
Based on the user journey, I designed a data architecture that connects environmental conditions with each rider’s learning and self-assessment history. The system combines the rider’s location with real-time apparent-temperature data from the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA), delivered through a serverless function. This environmental layer is linked to participant information, quiz results, symptom checks, and mission progress to provide context-specific guidance rather than generic heatwave warnings.
The architecture was organized into four connected layers: external weather-data ingestion, user and activity data collection, risk and progress calculation, and operational outputs. Supabase stores participant profiles and timestamped activity logs, while the application state processes pre- and post-training scores, self-check frequency, mission completion, and reward eligibility. Each interaction updates the rider’s heat-response score and determines which action or mission should appear next.
The same structured data supports both sides of the service. Riders receive a personalized dashboard showing current heat conditions, learning progress, self-check results, and recommended actions. Project operators can review real-time participation, track completion and reward distribution, and export participant or activity-log data as CSV files. This creates a continuous feedback loop between environmental risk, individual behavior, and program management.
Development
Turning heat-risk awareness into a repeatable field workflow
I developed OASIS as a connected mobile experience rather than a collection of isolated educational materials. The platform guides riders through a complete heat-response journey: registration, baseline assessment, practical learning, symptom self-checks, repeated field missions, and post-program evaluation.
Each module is designed to reduce the distance between information and action. Riders can check real-time heat conditions, assess their physical symptoms, review immediate response guidance, and complete short missions that reinforce hydration, rest, cooling, and early intervention. Progress is visualized through scores, mission states, and reward eligibility so that preventive behavior feels concrete and achievable.
The system also supports program delivery behind the scenes. Participant activity, assessment results, mission completion, and reward status are recorded in a shared data layer and surfaced through an administrator dashboard. This allows project operators to monitor participation in real time, identify drop-off points, manage incentives, and export records for reporting.
By combining education, self-assessment, behavioral reinforcement, and operational monitoring in one workflow, OASIS translates general heatwave guidance into practical actions that riders can repeat during their daily work.
Assess Risk and Begin the Program
Riders first review location-based heat conditions and complete a short baseline assessment. Their initial score reveals their level of heat-response preparedness and unlocks the first mission, giving them a clear starting point and a structured sequence of actions.
Learn, Self-Check, and Receive Support
Users complete practical heat-safety education, reinforce key concepts through an interactive quiz, and regularly record any symptoms experienced in the field. Their progress is tracked through the mission dashboard, while completing required activities unlocks tangible support such as a beverage coupon and cooling kit.
Reflect, Complete, and Share
At the end of the journey, riders provide feedback on the program, review a summary of their completed activities, and receive a final heat-response score. The completed dashboard remains available for continued reference and encourages users to share OASIS with other riders.
Lessons
Designing for repeated action, not one-time awareness
This project reinforced that heat-safety information becomes useful only when it is translated into actions that workers can perform under real field conditions. General warnings and educational content may increase awareness, but they do not necessarily help a rider decide whether to continue working, take a break, hydrate, or seek assistance. The service therefore needed to make the next action visible, simple, and immediately accessible.
A second lesson was that behavioral change requires repetition. A single assessment or training session cannot reflect the changing physical conditions of riders working throughout the summer. Repeated self-checks, sequential missions, progress indicators, and timely reminders were used to turn heat-risk management into an ongoing routine rather than a one-time intervention.
The project also showed that incentives can support participation, but they must be connected to meaningful safety behaviors. Beverage coupons and cooling kits were not treated as standalone rewards; they were unlocked through education, symptom monitoring, and mission completion. This helped align short-term motivation with the broader objective of encouraging preventive action.
Finally, building for both riders and program operators was essential. A user-facing experience alone would not support participant verification, reward distribution, progress monitoring, or project reporting. Connecting the mobile workflow to an administrative data layer made the service more practical to operate, evaluate, and improve during field implementation.
