skip to main content
10.1145/2556288.2557188acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PageschiConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

EmergencyMessenger: a text based communication concept for indoor firefighting

Published: 26 April 2014 Publication History

Abstract

Finding and rescuing missing or injured people or fighting fire inside burning buildings is a central challenge for fire brigades. To ensure the safety of indoor work, monitoring the operations of firefighting units is crucial. As in most countries, firefighters in Germany utilize radio sets to establish voice communication between indoor operating units and the supervisory structure outside. Based on findings from a long term ethnographic study in cooperation with different German fire brigades over a time span of more than 5 years we analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of the current voice over radio communication tactics and techniques. We designed and evaluated a complementary text based communication device the EMERGENCY-MESSENGER to support the time critical work of indoor units working under harsh conditions, wearing Self-Contained-Breathing-Apparatus (SCBA). We conducted 13 full scale training missions including extensive debriefings to design and evaluate the communication concept and the corresponding device.

References

[1]
Blomberg, J. and Karasti, H. Reflections on 25 Years of Ethnography in CSCW. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 22, 4--6 (2013), 373--423.
[2]
Chalmers, M. Seamful design: showing the seams in wearable computing. IEE, 2003.
[3]
Denef, S., Keyson, D., and Oppermann, R. Rigid structures, independent units, monitoring. Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems CHI '11, ACM Press (2011), 1949.
[4]
Denef, S., Ramirez, L., Dyrks, T., and Stevens, G. Handy Navigation in Ever-Changing Spaces: An Ethnographic Study of Firefighting Practices. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Symposium on Designing Interactive Systems, ACM Press (2008).
[5]
Denef, S., Ramirez, L., and Dyrks, T. Letting tools talk: interactive technology for firefighting. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, (2009), 4447--4452.
[6]
Flores, F., Graves, M., Hartfield, B., and Winograd, T. Computer systems and the design of organizational interaction. ACM Transactions on Information Systems 6, 2 (1988), 153--172.
[7]
Geertz, C. The interpretation of cultures : selected essays. Basic Books, New York, NY, 1973.
[8]
Glaser, B.G. and Strauss, A. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Aldine Transaction, New Brunswick, NJ, USA, 1999.
[9]
Gross, T. Supporting Effortless Coordination: 25 Years of Awareness Research. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 22, 4--6 (2013), 425--474.
[10]
Jiang, X., Chen, N.Y., Hong, J.I., Wang, K., Takayama, L., and Landay, J.A. Siren: Context-aware Computing for Firefighting. Pervasive Computing Second International Conference, PERVASIVE 2004, Linz/Vienna, Austria, April 21--23, 2004. Proceedings, Springer Berlin Heidelberg (2004), 87--105.
[11]
Landesfeuerwehrschule Schleswig-Holstein. Die Aufgaben der Gruppenführung. http://www.lfs-sh.de, 2006. http://www.lfssh.de/Ausbildung/Start/PraesentationZA.php.
[12]
Landgren, J. and Nulden, U. A study of emergency response work: patterns of mobile phone interaction. CHI '07: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, ACM (2007), 1323--1332.
[13]
Landgren, J. Making action visible in time-critical work. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems CHI '06, ACM Press (2006), 201.
[14]
Ramirez, L., Dyrks, T., Denef, S., and Stevens, G. Context as a resource for diagnostic work. Proceedings of the Eurpoean Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, ECSCW, (2007).
[15]
Ramirez, L., Dyrks, T., Gerwinski, J., Betz, M., and Scholz, M. Landmarke: an ad hoc deployable ubicomp infrastructure to support indoor navigation of firefighters. Personal Ubiquitous Computing, Special Issue on Extreme Navigation (2011), 1--14.
[16]
Rohde, M., Stevens, G., Brödner, P., and Wulf, V. Towards a paradigmatic shift in IS. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology DESRIST '09, ACM Press (2009), 1.
[17]
Suchman, L. Do categories have politics' Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 2, 3 (1994), 177--190.
[18]
Toups, Z.O. and Kerne, A. Implicit coordination in firefighting practice: design implications for teaching fire emergency responders. CHI '07: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, ACM (2007), 707--716.
[19]
Weiser, M. The Computer for the 21st Century. Scientific American 265, (1991), 94--104.
[20]
Winograd, T. A language/action perspective on the design of cooperative work. HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION 3, December 1986 (1987), 3--30.
[21]
Wulf, V., Rohde, M., Pipek, V., and Stevens, G. Engaging with practices: design case studies as a research framework in CSCW. Proceedings of the ACM 2011 conference on Computer supported cooperative work CSCW '11, ACM Press (2011), 505.

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Exploring the Design Space of Optical See-through AR Head-Mounted Displays to Support First Responders in the FieldProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642195(1-19)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
  • (2023)FASS: Firefighter Audio Safety SystemsProceedings of the 18th International Audio Mostly Conference10.1145/3616195.3616220(177-184)Online publication date: 30-Aug-2023
  • (2019)Sharing 9-1-1 Video Call Information between Dispatchers and Firefighters During Everyday EmergenciesProceedings of the 2019 on Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3322276.3322277(567-580)Online publication date: 18-Jun-2019
  • Show More Cited By

Index Terms

  1. EmergencyMessenger: a text based communication concept for indoor firefighting

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Information & Contributors

    Information

    Published In

    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHI '14: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    April 2014
    4206 pages
    ISBN:9781450324731
    DOI:10.1145/2556288
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

    Sponsors

    Publisher

    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 26 April 2014

    Permissions

    Request permissions for this article.

    Check for updates

    Author Tags

    1. autonomy
    2. communication
    3. cooperation
    4. firefighting
    5. indoor
    6. messaging
    7. monitoring
    8. safety
    9. security
    10. text

    Qualifiers

    • Research-article

    Conference

    CHI '14
    Sponsor:
    CHI '14: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    April 26 - May 1, 2014
    Ontario, Toronto, Canada

    Acceptance Rates

    CHI '14 Paper Acceptance Rate 465 of 2,043 submissions, 23%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 6,199 of 26,314 submissions, 24%

    Upcoming Conference

    CHI 2025
    ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    April 26 - May 1, 2025
    Yokohama , Japan

    Contributors

    Other Metrics

    Bibliometrics & Citations

    Bibliometrics

    Article Metrics

    • Downloads (Last 12 months)15
    • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)3
    Reflects downloads up to 01 Mar 2025

    Other Metrics

    Citations

    Cited By

    View all
    • (2024)Exploring the Design Space of Optical See-through AR Head-Mounted Displays to Support First Responders in the FieldProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642195(1-19)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
    • (2023)FASS: Firefighter Audio Safety SystemsProceedings of the 18th International Audio Mostly Conference10.1145/3616195.3616220(177-184)Online publication date: 30-Aug-2023
    • (2019)Sharing 9-1-1 Video Call Information between Dispatchers and Firefighters During Everyday EmergenciesProceedings of the 2019 on Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3322276.3322277(567-580)Online publication date: 18-Jun-2019
    • (2019)Addressing the Situational Impairments Encountered by Firefighters through the Design of AlertsProceedings of the 16th International Web for All Conference10.1145/3315002.3317556(1-10)Online publication date: 13-May-2019
    • (2019)An Exploratory Study of the Use of Drones for Assisting Firefighters During Emergency SituationsProceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3290605.3300502(1-14)Online publication date: 2-May-2019
    • (2017)Grounded Design - a praxeological IS research perspectiveJournal of Information Technology10.1057/jit.2016.532:2(163-179)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2017

    View Options

    Login options

    View options

    PDF

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online with eReader.

    eReader

    Figures

    Tables

    Media

    Share

    Share

    Share this Publication link

    Share on social media