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Towards Control Rooms as Human-Centered Pervasive Computing Environments

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Sense, Feel, Design (INTERACT 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13198))

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Abstract

State-of-the-art control rooms are equipped with a variety of input and output devices in terms of single-user workstations, shared public screens, and multimodal alarm systems. However, operators are bound to and sitting at their respective workstations for the most part of their shifts. Therefore, cooperation efforts are hampered, and physical activity is limited for several hours. Incorporating mobile devices, wearables and sensor technologies could improve on the current mode of operation but must be considered a paradigm shift from control rooms as a collection of technically networked but stationary workstations to control rooms as pervasive computing environments being aware of people and processes. However, based on the reviewed literature, systematic approaches to this paradigm shift taking usability and user experience into account are rare. In this work, we describe a root concept for control rooms as human-centered pervasive computing environments and introduce a framework for developing a wearable assistant as one of the central and novel components. Furthermore, we describe design challenges from a socio-technical perspective based on 9 expert interviews important for further research on pervasive computing environments in safety-critical domains.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The basic idea is derived from a software engineering design pattern of the same name for scalable systems.

  2. 2.

    For reasons of anonymity, a more precise assignment is omitted because identification of participations would be possible easily in some cases by combining work area, years of experience, gender, and location/nationality.

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Acknowledgements

This project is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – 425868829 and is part of Priority Program SPP2199 Scalable Interaction Paradigms for Pervasive Computing Environments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Trier University of Applied Sciences, Schneidershof, 54293, Trier, Germany

    Nadine Flegel & Tilo Mentler

  2. University of Siegen, Adolf-Reichwein-Straße 2a, 57076, Siegen, Germany

    Jonas Poehler & Kristof Van Laerhoven

Authors
  1. Nadine Flegel
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  2. Jonas Poehler
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  3. Kristof Van Laerhoven
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  4. Tilo Mentler
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nadine Flegel .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy

    Carmelo Ardito

  2. University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy

    Rosa Lanzilotti

  3. Computer Science Department, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Alessio Malizia

  4. Reykjavik University, Reykjavik, Iceland

    Marta Larusdottir

  5. University of Cagliari, Caglieri, Italy

    Lucio Davide Spano

  6. Department of Information, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

    José Campos

  7. Department of Communication, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Morten Hertzum

  8. Fachbereich Informatik, Trier University of Applied Sciences, Trier, Germany

    Tilo Mentler

  9. ITI/Larsys, University of West London, London, UK

    José Abdelnour Nocera

  10. Knowledge Media Institute, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

    Lara Piccolo

  11. University of Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany

    Stefan Sauer

  12. Faculty of Sciences, Department of Computer Science, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Gerrit van der Veer

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Flegel, N., Poehler, J., Van Laerhoven, K., Mentler, T. (2022). Towards Control Rooms as Human-Centered Pervasive Computing Environments. In: Ardito, C., et al. Sense, Feel, Design. INTERACT 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13198. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98388-8_29

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