Guidance for developing human–computer interfaces for supporting fire emergency response

Abstract

Despite recent work on information systems (ISs), many first responders in the UK Fire and Rescue Services (FRSs) are unable to develop sufficient understanding of the situation to enable them to make good decisions. As a partial requirement of the development of IS for the UK FRSs, a software prototype consisting of a number of human–computer interfaces are developed and subsequently evaluated to explore how to present useful information for firefighters during their response operations. This article exclusively discusses the findings arising from end-user demonstration sessions conducted via participative type of prototype evaluation that is aimed to understand the appropriateness and usefulness of the proposed software prototype supporting fire emergency response (ER). This article contributes to improve the designing of the human–computer interfaces and human–computer interaction for supporting firefighters during fire ER by introducing advice based on the end user evaluation feedback of the proposed software prototype.