Using technology for real-time coordination of work : a study of work and artifact use in the everyday activities at SOS Alarm

Sammanfattning: Work in control rooms, or so-called Centers of coordination, places demands both on humans and technology. The people working there have to be able to make quick decisions as well as be alert during less busy times. The work has to be coordinated within the group, since the operators are much depending on each other's work. This places special demands on the technology; it should be fast, trustworthy and easy to manipulate so that the complexity of the work is reduced. This type of work has been a source of interest in the research area of Computer Supported Cooperative Work, especially so since the needs for real-time coordination is great in these settings. SOS Alarm is a company that is responsible for managing the telephone calls made to the emergency number 112 in Sweden. They have 20 centers covering Sweden. This thesis present an overview of the SOS operators work; how they coordinate the information and tasks between them; how the technology supports that work. This study presents a fully computerized setting, compared to many other studies of centers of coordination that are not. This ethnographic workplace study has been inspired by ethnomethodological perspectives as well as earlier field studies of work and technology use. Its main results are a description of the work practice and technology at two centers, implications for design of a new computer aided dispatch system that is currently developed at SOS Alarm and general design ideas for control rooms.