Sonja Theresa Kwee-MeierHuman-Centred Design of Digital Escape Route Signage with Age as a Diversity Dimension in High-Stress Evacuation Situations | |||||||
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ISBN: | 978-3-8440-5798-0 | ||||||
Series: | Industrial Engineering and Ergonomics Herausgeber: Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Verena Nitsch, Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Frank O. Flemisch, Prof. Dr. phil. Dipl.-Ing. Martin Frenz, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Susanne Mütze-Niewöhner and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. rer. medic. Alexander Mertens Aachen | ||||||
Volume: | 28 | ||||||
Keywords: | Ergonomie; Digitalisierung; menschzentrierte Gestaltung; Anzeigen; Entscheidungen; mentale Beanspruchung; körperliche Beanspruchung; ergonomics; digitalisation; human-centred design; signs; decision-making; mental strain; physical strain | ||||||
Type of publication: | Thesis | ||||||
Language: | English | ||||||
Pages: | 372 pages | ||||||
Figures: | 79 figures | ||||||
Weight: | 485 g | ||||||
Format: | 21 x 14,8 cm | ||||||
Binding: | Paperback | ||||||
Price: | 49,80 € / 62,30 SFr | ||||||
Published: | March 2018 | ||||||
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Review copy: | Here you can order a review copy. | ||||||
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Abstract: | Modern cruise ships often have capacities for over 5,000 people and lengths of several hundred metres. Past incidents, such as the accident of the Costa Concordia in 2012, have shown that evacuations are high-stress situations with high mental, emotional and also physical demands. This is particularly problematic, as cruises are highly popular amongst elderly people, who often have deteriorated perceptual, cognitive and physical abilities. The overall aim of this thesis is to enhance safety in evacuation situations by human-centred design of new situation-adaptive digital escape route signage. Therefore, three experimental studies have been conducted to investigate how the design freedom of digital escape route signage should be used to effectively influence the direction choices of young and elderly people under mentally, emotionally and physically demanding conditions.
These studies with decision-making tasks and partly with movement interaction on inclined surfaces to simulate tilted ships have shown that digital escape route signage effectively influences the decisions for directions of young and elderly people also under mentally, emotionally and physically challenging conditions. The results were persistent even with competing environmental cues, such as brighter corridors, and updates of the displayed escape directions, for instance because of fire. Integrated dynamic elements and information on recent updates were beneficial, whereas prohibitions of alternative directions negatively affected trust and direction decisions. Decision times and consistencies indicated contrary tendencies of decreased information processing efficiency and rash decision-making under high mental, emotional and physical strain, which was assessed by subjective ratings, eye tracking and electromyography. This finding shows the relevance of sensory affordance of escape route signage, e.g. realised by integrated dynamic elements. The present thesis shows the great potential of implementing digital escape route signage to guide evacuees efficiently and safely under situation-specific conditions. Introducing such signage could substantially increase safety for people on large ships and in other domains, such as airports. |