The Communicator Project

The purpose of this project is to design a device that solves communication and coordination problems in safety-critical industrial process control. Today, this communication is typically based on VHF radios which is highly sensitive to noise and inherent limitations of spoken communication. The project has involved two major empirical case studies in collaboration with Maersk-Sealand and Nordjyllandsværket and the design and evaluation of two mobile communication prototype systems. In the first case study, conducted in collaboration with a major international container shipping company, the project focused on the communication on board large container ships between the captain on the bridge and officers managing the crews that are working at the bow and stern when a ship is arriving at or leaving the harbor. Based on ethnographic observations and object-oriented analysis a mobile communication system prototype was designed and implemented facilitating text-based communication and partial automation. In the second case study, the lessons learned from the evaluations of the first prototype informed the design of a mobile communication and communication tool for distributed workers at a large regional power plant furthering our knowledge about interaction design for mobile devices and the use of text-based communication in safety-critical domains.