Voices of first responders– applying human factors and ergonomics knowledge to improve the usability of public safety communications technology

Abstract

With the newly created Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network (NPSBN), the publicsafety community is in the process of supplementing the use of land mobile radios with atechnology ecosystem that will include a variety of new and improved communication tools, including a range of broadband data sharing platforms. As these technologies are beingdeveloped, researchers and industry alike need to focus on the end users – the firstresponders – in order to ensure successful and usable systems. Understanding the userpopulation of first respondersis key to improved usability. The National Institute of Standardsand Technology (NIST) Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) Usability Team took amulti-phase, mixed methods approach in order to provide greater understanding of publicsafety technology users, their experiences, and their technology needs and problems.This report, Phase 1, Volume 5, is the 5th in a series of reports on the data from the Phase 1in-depth interviews. This report is a companion document and should be used in conjunctionwith the Phase 1, Volume 2 report that identifies the technology problems and needs of firstresponders from the in-depth interview data. The current report focuses on providingpractical guidance and recommendations for improving the usability of communicationtechnology for first responders by applying human factors and ergonomics (HFE) principlesand usability evaluation methodology. The field of HFE considers five major aspects (perceptual, cognitive, physical, environmental, and social & organizational) of humaninteractions with systems to optimize human well-being and overall system performance.In Phase 1 in-depth interviews, 193 first responders–from Comm Center & 9-1-1 Services (COMMS), Emergency Medical Services (EMS), Fire Service (FF), and Law Enforcement (LE) –have been interviewed. A total of 107 categories of technology problems and needs wereidentified as documented in the Phase 1, Volume 2 report. In this report, from the usabilityand HFE perspectives, we performed further assessment on those 107 categories and dividedthem into two main groups. In the first group, 27 categories were clustered into 14 topics.For each of the 14 topics, specific HFE recommendations were made in order to ensure theusability of communication technology for first responders. In the other group, the remaining80 categories of technology problems and needs were clustered into 6 topicsin which genericHFE considerations are applicable.To ensure the usability of communication technology for first responders, both groupsrequire a two-stage human-centered process to be followed for technology development andimplementation. The two-stage (requirement analysis and usability testing) process includes:(1) HFE professional(s) is integrated with the product team from the initiation and throughoutthe product development lifecycle; (2) at various stages, the product needs to go throughusability evaluations before the final implementation. The HFE professional must approvethat the product and technology meet the HFE and usability requirements to be ready forfinal implementation.The objective of this report is to provide concise and actionable HFE guidance andrecommendations to the PSCR R&D community without extensive discussions on thetheoretical background information. Practitioners interested in addressing a specific topic caniiThis publication is available free of charge from: https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.8340take the recommendations, design and develop the technology following the two-stagehuman-centered process throughout the entire product development lifecycle to deliver thedesirable and usable communication technology to first responders.