The User Interface of a Medical First Aid Application - A Close-to-Realistic Usability Study with the Smartphone Application “Defi Now!”

Karin Harbusch, Janine Paschke

2013

Abstract

Several smartphone applications are available to support the delivery of medical first aid, in particular car-diopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), by untrained people. These apps support passers-by witnessing an emer-gency situation, or enable brushing up basic knowledge of first aid. Moreover, they inform about publicly available automatic external defibrillators (AEDs) and allow users to add the location of new devices. In this paper, we describe features of various first aid apps currently on the market. In order to find out whether or not these apps can really be helpful in emergency situations, we conducted a usability study with 74 par-ticipants who used the “Defi Now!” app. In order to simulate “realistic” conditions where the user is agitat-ed—as is the case when rescuing a person suffering from cardiac arrest—we induced fear by a psychologi-cally recommended method. Based on data from a questionnaire and video recordings, we discuss strong and weak points of “Defi Now!”. The app was judged to be very helpful for medically untrained people. Nonetheless, our observations suggest several improvements to the user interface.

References

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Paper Citation


in Harvard Style

Harbusch K. and Paschke J. (2013). The User Interface of a Medical First Aid Application - A Close-to-Realistic Usability Study with the Smartphone Application “Defi Now!” . In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Volume 3: ICEIS, ISBN 978-989-8565-61-7, pages 91-98. DOI: 10.5220/0004441100910098


in Bibtex Style

@conference{iceis13,
author={Karin Harbusch and Janine Paschke},
title={The User Interface of a Medical First Aid Application - A Close-to-Realistic Usability Study with the Smartphone Application “Defi Now!”},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Volume 3: ICEIS,},
year={2013},
pages={91-98},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0004441100910098},
isbn={978-989-8565-61-7},
}


in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Volume 3: ICEIS,
TI - The User Interface of a Medical First Aid Application - A Close-to-Realistic Usability Study with the Smartphone Application “Defi Now!”
SN - 978-989-8565-61-7
AU - Harbusch K.
AU - Paschke J.
PY - 2013
SP - 91
EP - 98
DO - 10.5220/0004441100910098