Dashboard design for improved team situation awareness in time-critical medical work: Challenges and lessons learned

We describe the process of designing TRU-Board, a dashboard system for improving team situation awareness in trauma resuscitation units-time-critical, high-risk medical settings characterized by team-based and information-intensive processes of treating critically injured patients. The design and evaluation process involved an iterative, user-centered approach with multiple phases and activities, including participatory design workshops, interviews and narrated video review sessions, video analysis of live resuscitations, and rapid prototyping and testing through heuristic evaluation and simulation sessions. Using this approach, we created a total of 16 major design prototypes, with multiple iterations in-between. This design and evaluation process resulted in several design principles and lessons learned. We conclude by discussing these lessons and challenges to introducing computerized support in complex, high-risk medical domains.