extends the design phase to enable the development and 
adaptation of the required base technologies in their own 
iterative design processes that are spun off and the results later 
integrated into the complete application. 
3.1 General Requirements for Disaster Control 
Management 
In previous work the existing situation of disaster control 
management has been analysed (Nebe et. al, 2011) in 
cooperation with our partner the German Federal Agency for 
Technical Relief (German abbr. "THW*). Their work during an 
operation requires planning, coordination, collaboration and 
coactivity. Today they predominantly make use of classical 
tools like pen and paper, paper maps, boards and magnetic 
labels (see Fig. 1). Most of the dedicated workflows and roles 
are also highly standardized. 
As a result, IT tools have to be integrated with care since they 
are not allowed to violate existing specifications. 
The overall goal is to keep in control of the situation on-site or 
in the field. In order to guarantee this, there are specific roles 
dedicated to specific persons and an information distribution 
policy, which ensures that all incoming information and 
outgoing commands are served adequately. For legal reasons 
there is also a need of traceability, that is a documentation of 
which user initiated which command is required. 
Building on existing studies on disaster management we 
conducted the requirements elicitation as an iterative, on-going 
process. The most important insights were derived from 
interviews, workshops and on-site training exercises conducted 
with disaster managers and technicians from THW. During 
practice we were able to observe the experts in their real work 
environment (Figure 2). 
The insights from these observations were captured in scenarios 
that cover the diverse types of crisis situations and their 
information and command requirements, different user roles and 
operating environments. 
These scenarios were then analysed to derive key requirements 
at the application, task and interaction level. 
General application level requirements include: 
* provide access and control to information the way 
users are used to 
* manage and visualize the current situation in the field 
* maintain the benefits of the established robust 
workflow that is clearly visible to all stakeholders 
* easily integrate non-expert personal (e.g. local support 
staff) 
* clear allocation of control for critical tasks 
* support for information sharing 
e data interface with OGC standard and commonly used 
non-standard data formats 
e enable integration of software tools that allow a more 
efficient processing of recurring tasks 
Expected additional benefits for a new system include: 
* seamless and scalable map display 
e support for rich media presentations of information 
* selective use of information layers 
* support for geo-referencing of units and incidents and 
automated transmission of coordinates 
58 
integration with existing GIS systems 
access to real-time sensor and location data 
information filtering and spatial analysis functions 
support for private workspaces 
ability to distinguish between different users; traceable 
interaction 
In the following paragraphs we discuss the requirements of two 
use scenarios in detail, where the benefits of a computer 
supported tool with simulation capabilities was identified as 
central: 
3.2 Network Coverage 
The most important thing for disaster control management is the 
(re-) creation of infrastructure. Therefore it is necessary that all 
involved control centres and units are able to communicate. 
Disaster control organizations are often able to create their own 
mobile network infrastructure via several antennas in the field. 
However, calculating antenna positions, network coverage and 
signal strength is a complicated task. Therefore it is essential to 
develop IT tools that support workers in this task. 
3.3 Water Transportation 
Water transportation is required in almost every emergency 
situation in order to extinguish fire, manage floodings or to 
organize drinking water supply. The planning of water 
transportation routes always depends on the area, the altitude 
profile, available tubes and pumps as well as obstacles in the 
field. A tool that calculates and evaluates routes and needed 
material is therefore another requirement for an interactive 
disaster control management system. 
4. REALIZATION 
As previously described, the useTable offers multimodal 
interaction through multi-touch, tangible interaction and pen- 
based interaction. In cooperation with the German Federal 
Agency For Technical Relief (THW) we already developed a 
system that supports workers in disaster control management 
(Nebe et. al, 2012). The system allows the creation and 
manipulation of damage accounts that describe every detail of a 
situation on a digital map (see Fig. 5). 
  
Fig. 5: Damage Accounts on the useTable 
  
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