Improving Usability of Integrated Emergency Response Systems: The SoKNOS Approach

Implementing systems for emergency response poses various challenges. Information from various sources and systems needs to be integrated, processed, aggregated, and visualized in a dynamic and consistent fashion. Amongst all those challenges, one key issue is the development of an optimal user interface, which allows for intuitive operation with different information as well as supports collaborative work, even in stressful situations. In this paper, we introduce the SoKNOS system, an emergency response system addressing those challenges and putting special emphasis on usability. We illustrate how integration on the user interface level enables both efficient engineering and improved usability for emergency management systems, and how collaborative interaction in emergency situations is supported by SoKNOS.