User Experiences of Incident Reporting Software in Fire Services: An Integrative Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

This integrative review gathers data from published articles and user feedback for a meta-analysis of the common problems, use contexts, and recommendations. The project supplements primary interviews with secondary data from prior studies and reports, as well as online feedback and reviews. This approach helps validate user experience findings for rarely-tested products, and it helps to confirm and identify user affordances and system pain points. Findings suggest that poor visibility of system status, lack of match between system and real-world use, and opaque help and documentation are common barriers. NFIRS software programs also do not anticipate the cultural idiosyncrasies endemic to fire services (such as apprenticeship learning) that, if addressed, could help software users better recognize, diagnose and recover from decision-making errors. Firefighters request more functionality, more help to find pertinent codes, and differentiating between nondescript codes. Recommendations for improving the quality of software programs for incident reporting in fire services include improving customization features, providing templates and content guides, and improving the glossaries of common acronyms. Help systems should address the diverse backgrounds and levels of education that comprise fire services.