Bloomcast

Bloomcast is a collaborative tool for the WA State Department of Health’s Shellfish Safety Program. WA State is the leading producer of shellfish in the nation, and the Shellfish Safety Program monitors the harvesting of all commercial and recreational shellfish for the presence of harmful marine biotoxins. Because biotoxins pose a serious public health concern, the team needs to be able to test for unsafe levels of biotoxins and urgently communicate shellfish harvest closures. Through methods of contextual inquiry, we observed the workflows and use of artifacts in the team’s process, tracing the journey of the shellfish from the waters of the Puget Sound to the lab. Our result was a concept for a web-based tool to support the team’s capacity for predicting and communicating closures.