Temporal aspects in crisis management and its implications on interface design for situation awareness

Area of Science:

• Information Science
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Crisis Management

Background:

• Crises are dynamic events where time is crucial for situation awareness (SA).
• Existing information technology for crisis management (CM) may not adequately address temporal aspects.
• Understanding how temporality influences SA is vital for effective CM system design.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore temporal aspects in CM design.
• To investigate how these temporal aspects influence crisis managers' SA.
• To develop design principles for CM systems that support SA through temporality.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative study using group interviews.
• Utilized a prototype and a scenario as mediating materials.
• Analysis of participants' reflections and identified obstacles.

Main Results:

• Timelines in CM systems should display deadlines, public information, communication logs, process context, and shift handover details.
• Functionality for adjusting timescale and temporal perspectives is essential for timelines.
• Identified obstacles to SA include information overflow, rapid SA changes, external sharing difficulties, memory issues, and data quality dependence.

Conclusions:

• Six design principles were compiled to guide the integration of temporality into CM systems.
• Effective consideration of temporality can significantly improve crisis managers' SA.
• Future CM system design should prioritize temporal features to enhance crisis response effectiveness.