Multiple Viewpoints on Computer Supported Team Work: A Case Study on Ambulance Dispatch

International Journal of Human-Computer Studies

Wong

2004

Self Cite

153

102

Situation Awareness, and how systems can be designed to support it appropriately, have been a focus of study in dynamic, safety critical contexts such as aviation. The work reported here extends the study of situation awareness into the domain of Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD). The study was conducted in one of the largest ambulance services in the world. In this study, we encountered development and exploitation of situation awareness, particularly among the more senior EMD operators called allocators. In this paper we describe the notion of a 'mental picture' as an outcome of situation awareness, how an awareness of the situation is developed and maintained, the cues allocators attend to, and the difficulties they face in doing so. One of the key characteristics of ambulance control is that relatively routine behaviour is periodically interspersed with incidents that demand much higher levels of attention, but that the routine work must still be completed; operators exhibit contrasting levels of situation awareness for the different kinds of incidents. Our findings on situation awareness are related to those of others, particularly Endsley and Wickens. The observations and interviews enable us to propose high-level requirements for systems to support appropriate situation awareness, to enable EMD staff to complete their work effectively.

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Situation awareness in emergency medical dispatch

International Journal of Human-Computer Studies

Wong

2004

Self Cite

153

102

“…In contrast to most evaluation approaches, CASSM does not focus on tasks, but on entities and attributes, and the differences between the system and user models of how entities and their attributes are represented and manipulated at the interface. Previously, we have described how CASSM can identify misfits in systems as diverse as drawing tools and online music libraries [7] and ambulance dispatch [3]. In this paper, we extend the application of CASSM to Tallis [8], a knowledge representation system that exhibits an unusual degree of overlap between the C 3 roles.…”

Section: Cassm and Misfit Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[3] "Adult/Child screen confusing, since 'multiple choice' option comes later" [3] "Can't see Family Ticket in ticket type selection" [1] "Can't do tickets in advance [e.g. for specified day which is not today]" [3] "Machines [or the simulation] don't tell you the cheaper route or choices, etc.…”

Section: Consumers: Tvmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Knowledge Representation Environments: An Investigation of the CASSMs between Creators, Composers and Consumers

Engineering Interactive Systems

Green

Connell

et al. 2008

Self Cite

Abstract. Many systems form 'chains' whereby developers use one system (or 'tool') to create another system, for use by other people. For example, a web development tool is created by one development team then used by others to compose web pages for use by yet other people. Little work within HumanComputer Interaction (HCI) has considered how usability considerations propagate through such chains. In this paper, we discuss three-link chains involving people that we term Creators (commonly referred to as designers), Composers (users of the tool who compose artefacts for other users) and Consumers (end users of artefacts). We focus on usability considerations and how Creators can develop systems that are both usable themselves and also support Composers in producing further systems that Consumers can work with easily. We show how CASSM, an analytic evaluation method that focuses attention on conceptual structures for interactive systems, supports reasoning about the propagation of concepts through Creator-Composer-Consumer chains. We use as our example a knowledge representation system called Tallis, which includes specific implementations of these different perspectives. Tallis is promoting a development culture within which individuals are empowered to take on different roles in order to strengthen the 'chain of comprehension' between different user types.

“…Previously, CASSM has been used to analyse a drawing tool (Connell et al, 2003), a robotic arm and systems for supporting ambulance dispatch control room workers (Blandford et al, 2002). We are interested in the application of the method to problems of information interaction, which to date has been limited to a study of library users' interactions with a digital library system .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptual misfits in e‐mail‐based current‐awareness interaction

Attfield

Journal of Documentation

2011

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Purpose -This research aims to identify some requirements for supporting user interactions with electronic current-awareness alert systems based on data from a professional work environment.Design/methodology/approach -Qualitative data was gathered using contextual inquiry observations with twenty-one workers at the London office of an international law firm. The analysis uses CASSM ('Concept-based Analysis of Surface and Structural Misfits'), a usability evaluation method structured around identifying mismatches, or 'misfits', between user-concepts and concepts represented within a system.Findings -Participants were frequently overwhelmed by email alerts, and a key requirement is to support efficient interaction. Several misfits which act as barriers to efficient reviewing and follow-on activities are demonstrated. These relate to a lack of representation of key userconcepts at the interface and/or within the system, including alert items and their properties, source documents, 'back-story', primary sources, content categorisations and user collections.Research limitations/implications -Given these misfits we derive a set of requirements to improve the efficiency with which users can achieve key outcomes with current-awareness information as these occur within a professional work environment.Originality/value -The findings will be of interest to current-awareness providers. The approach is relevant to information interaction researchers interested in deriving design requirements from naturalistic studies.