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by incongruity 3523 days ago
First, sensory overload is a real thing (to extend the analogy). Second, there's the presumption that "more information" = better but that's not clear in this case. 911 calls are often themselves reports of past events (recent past, but still past) so, again, I ask – what are you hoping people will do? What will they do? How do you bridge those or help people do what they want to/need to do? Awareness is rarely the real need (ala the idea that I'm not really buying a drill because I want a power tool – I'm buying a drill because I need a hole made here, here and here).

If you don't actually have a clear answer to that, then this is a half-baked idea because it's not clear what problem you're really solving – and it falls back to the idea of "ZOMG! AWARENESS!!!!1" which is really a sign of insufficient thinking, IMHO.

I'd challenge you all to step back, articulate a clear problem frame and goal and maybe then look at the way crime unfolds – map out before, during after and look at what awareness does at each of those points (and what signals you can meaningfully find). How, then, can you build an app to do those things/support those aims and activities that you've identified as your goals? If you've done that, then articulate that in your description/writing.