Applying Usability Engineering to Interactive Systems for Crisis and Disaster Management

Crisis and disaster management are increasingly characterized by interactive systems intended to be valuable support for professionals and volunteers in preventing, preparing for, responding to and recovering from major incidents and accidents. Therefore, usability in terms of safe and efficient usage of computer-based solutions becomes a crucial factor for successful crisis and disaster management. In order to ensure usability, it has to be addressed systematically throughout any development process. In this paper, established engineering approaches to crisis and disaster management systems are summarized. Subsequently, resemblances (e.g. diversity of users and devices) and differences (e.g. scalability) between safety-critical contexts of medical device design and crisis management are outlined. Following this, recommendations for applying usability engineering processes to disaster management are derived from standards and guidelines according to medical device design (IEC 62366-1:2015, ISO 14971:2007). Particularly, relationships and interactions between usability engineering and risk managements measures (e.g. hazard-related use scenarios) are described.

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