When firefighters do become lost in the building there is no way for the Incident Commander (located externally) to locate them, to allow an emergency team to rescue them. This is also known as situational awareness.

My brief for this project was to design a user interface that the Incident Commander could use to inform them of where the firefighters are at anytime in a building.

There were numerous factors to consider when setting to design an interface for such a unique demographic. I quickly scamped up numerous designs, which incorporated most of the key requirements the ECO (Entry Control Officer) need to know about the firefighters who were about to enter the building.

In time and after multiple meetings with the stakeholders, these key requirements were whittled down to the bare essentials. This left me with core details that we’re going to make up the heart of my user interface.

To gain a greater understanding of the unique environment that firefighters are faced with, I was given access to a firefighters test facilities. Learning about how they work on a daily basis supplied me with a rich insight into how stressful their workplace can be.

Working along side me on the project was a full-time firefighter, who was also able to inform me on how firefighters behave when faced with various life treating situations. He also supplied me with a lot of considerations that needed to be factored into the overall design of the interface.

After presenting a strong design to the potential users, I received feedback that focused around the visibility of some of the key icons. Visibility of the interface was always central to the interfaces design. That said, the main request coming from that meeting was to make the buttons and icons bigger. So, after numerous design iterations were visualised and presented, I was able to capture the ideal design solution.

After designing the interface, I was requested to design a fully responsive website. I started off with a few scamps of the sites layout and the key aspects of the product. After getting sign off on the design, I started applying the brand guidelines, that I created earlier in the project, to the design. Hi-fidelity prototypes were visualised for all of the required screens and presented to the stakeholders. After approval, I took the designs and started to build the site in html, css and with a little bit of jQuery thrown in for good measure.

The interface is designed and developed inconjunction with the product. Product limitations and technological restraints constantly dictated the design of the interface. This was a new an exciting challenge for me. The product is continually tested and modified before it is launched into the market.

The opportunity to work on a project like this doesn’t come around very often, but it is one I’ll never forget. To be able to design something that could potentially change how firefighters work in the future and in-turn reduce fatalities in the service, is something I was very proud to be a part of.