Collaboration Surrounding Beacon Use During Companion Avalanche Rescue

Desjardins, A., Neustaedter, C., Greenberg, S. and Wakkary, R. (2014)
Collaboration Surrounding Beacon Use During Companion Avalanche Rescue. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work - ACM CSCW'2014. ACM Press, pages 877-887, February. <B>Honorable Mention Award</B>.

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Abstract

When facing an avalanche, backcountry skiers need to work effectively both individually and as a group to rescue buried victims. If they don't, death is likely. One of the tools used by each person is a digital beacon that transmits an electromagnetic signal. If buried, others use their beacons to locate victims by searching for their signals, and then dig them out. This study focuses on the collaborative practices of avalanche rescue and the interactions with beacons while backcountry skiing. We conducted interviews with backcountry recreationists and experts, and we observed avalanche rescue practice scenarios. Our results highlight aspects and challenges of mental representation, trust, distributed cognition, and practice. Implications include three considerations for the redesign of beacons: simplicity, visibility and practice.

Bibtex entry

@INPROCEEDINGS { 2014-CompanionRescue.CSCW,
CLASS = { CONFARTICLE },
AUTHOR = { Desjardins, A. and Neustaedter, C. and Greenberg, S. and Wakkary, R. },
TITLE = { Collaboration Surrounding Beacon Use During Companion Avalanche Rescue },
YEAR = { 2014 },
MONTH = { February },
BOOKTITLE = { Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work - ACM CSCW'2014 },
PUBLISHER = { ACM Press },
PAGES = { 877-887 },
DOI = { http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2531602.2531684 },
NOTE = { <B>Honorable Mention Award</B> },
}