Blue-Collars/Tough Designs: UX Within Fire Service Occupational Safety and Health Programs

Abstract

We discuss a set of ongoing participatory design projects where participants are working to adapt a physiological monitoring prototype for use within the fire service. These projects include members of the fire service community, the director of a comprehensive firefighter medical and fitness program called the Firefighter Testing Program (FTP) located in the Human Performance Clinical Research Laboratory (HPCRL) at Colorado State University (CSU), a user-experience researcher, and a team of developers. The original AvidCor prototype (AC-1) is an affordable physiological monitor that pairs with a smartphone, allowing a user to independently record data about their electrocardiogram (EKG), pulse oximetry, and body temperature. The purpose of one of these participatory design projects is to identify barriers and envision opportunities where the AC-1 prototype and smart-phone app could be used to increase firefighters’ access to information and care that can be used to manage cardiovascular risk. Similarly, the purpose of the second project is to develop and test a second prototype, the AvidCor Fire-ground (AC-FG), capable of streaming real-time information about firefighters’ physiological performance which can enrich the types of decisions making processes that EMS professionals, firefighters, fire officers, and incident commanders engage in while operating within hazardous work environments.