Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

Kaj Suneson and Ilona Heldal
too expensive. The user informants also stated that <strong>the</strong> need for extra resources – a police
department for example needed to employ two administrators – would remain even after
implementation. This was not planned for or known in advance.
Likewise, <strong>the</strong> set-up <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> system for each user organization required numerous meetings, efforts
and unplanned resources from <strong>the</strong> user side. This did not conform with <strong>the</strong>ir view <strong>of</strong> how <strong>the</strong> set-up
should be performed.
4.2 Use <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> system
Users felt that <strong>the</strong> new functions presented to support communication in <strong>the</strong> day-to-day work were
complicated. New choices and new interfaces needed to be learned. At <strong>the</strong> same time, <strong>the</strong> interfaces
are considered to be old-fashioned compared to common touch phones (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Ericsson (DEC) mobile phone from <strong>the</strong> 1980s, and <strong>the</strong> actual standard for RAKEL terminals
(EADS and Motorola)
This situation made potential future users thoughtful and caused <strong>the</strong>m to hold back on
implementation. The launching organization had to approve all equipment that would be connected to
<strong>the</strong> communication system. The basis for this was <strong>the</strong> stated requirements in <strong>the</strong> governmental plan
for <strong>the</strong> system. This made tailored solutions difficult to develop and <strong>the</strong> use <strong>of</strong> common interfaces
risked taking <strong>the</strong> focus away from <strong>the</strong> rescue situation. The focus on what is important in <strong>the</strong> situation
could be lost and situation awareness impaired.
User organizations struggle to maintain sufficient competence among personnel since <strong>the</strong>re are many
infrequent users, e.g. part-time firemen. Doctors were interested in saving lives and not learning about
radio communication with ambulances. The risk <strong>of</strong> impairing situation awareness with complex and
unfamiliar interfaces was also stated clearly by a police <strong>of</strong>ficer: "Just imagine a situation where you
are in a hostile emergency situation with a victim in an apartment and you have to get in by force with
a gun in your hand…. At <strong>the</strong> same time you have to pick up your radio and search through menus to
find <strong>the</strong> correct collaboration group to call for back-up…" These examples show that safety or <strong>the</strong>
quality <strong>of</strong> work could be impaired by switching <strong>the</strong> focus from making sense <strong>of</strong> a highly charged
situation to learning to communicate in a new way (both organizational and inter-organizational
barriers).
There is concern that <strong>the</strong> new system would put an extra burden on <strong>the</strong> user and cause him/her to
lose focus on <strong>the</strong> situation and <strong>the</strong>refore lose situation awareness, especially when using ano<strong>the</strong>r
extra system in top <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> existing ones (see Figure 2).
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