<p>When a task becomes shared the need for coordination arises. One fundamental factor for coordination is awareness. This study aimed to answer the question of how awareness-based coordination support systems could increase the efficiency in the processing of tasks generated by the Customer Support Unit in Skellefteå municipality, ultimately creating a better work situation for the officers responsible for the handling of tasks and increasing the service level for the customers of their services. This question was answered by conducting interviews, observing system usage and through analysis of pre-existing interviews from earlier studies of the municipality’s CSU project. This study shows that there are aspects in the task management that are in need of coordination support and presents a task classification system based on the logistic nature of the task. Furthermore this paper identifies the main problems related to the current task management and from an awareness perspective discusses and outlines various mechanisms and techniques to address these problems. Alongside these problems the general lack of coordination support in the current Document and Workflow System (FlexiteBPMS) is approached. Furthermore all outlined proposals share the common aspiration of lessening the burden for the officers without simply shifting the workload onto other units in the workflow chain.</p>

When a task becomes shared the need for coordination arises. One fundamental factor for coordination is awareness. This study aimed to answer the question of how awareness-based coordination support systems could increase the efficiency in the processing of tasks generated by the Customer Support Unit in Skellefteå municipality, ultimately creating a better work situation for the officers responsible for the handling of tasks and increasing the service level for the customers of their services. This question was answered by conducting interviews, observing system usage and through analysis of pre-existing interviews from earlier studies of the municipality’s CSU project. This study shows that there are aspects in the task management that are in need of coordination support and presents a task classification system based on the logistic nature of the task. Furthermore this paper identifies the main problems related to the current task management and from an awareness perspective discusses and outlines various mechanisms and techniques to address these problems. Alongside these problems the general lack of coordination support in the current Document and Workflow System (FlexiteBPMS) is approached. Furthermore all outlined proposals share the common aspiration of lessening the burden for the officers without simply shifting the workload onto other units in the workflow chain.

Hospital environments are ranked as one of the most stressful contemporary work environments for their employees, and this especially concerns nurses (Nejati et al. 2016). One of the core problems comprises the notion that the current technology adopted in hospitals does not support the mobile nature of medical work and the complex work environment, in which people and information are distributed (Bardram 2003). The employment of inadequate technology and the strenuous access to information results in a decrease in efficiency regarding the fulfilment of medical tasks, and puts a strain on the attention of the medical personnel. This thesis proposes a solution to the aforementioned problems through the design of ambient displays, that inform the medical personnel with the health statuses of patients whilst requiring minimal allocation of attention. The ambient displays concede a hierarchy of information, where the most essential information encompasses an overview of patients’ vital signs. Data regarding the vital signs are measured by biometric sensors and are embodied by shape-changing interfaces, of which the ambient displays consist. User-authentication permits the medical personnel to access a deeper layer within the hierarchy of information, entailing clinical data such as patient EMRs, after gesture-based interaction with the ambient display. The additional clinical information is retrieved on the user’s PDA, and can subsequently be viewed in more detail, or modified at any place within the hospital.In this thesis, prototypes of shape-changing interfaces were designed and evaluated in a hospital environment. The evaluation was focused on the interaction design and user-experience of the shape-changing interface, the capabilities of the ambient displays to inform users through peripheral awareness, as well as the remote communication between patient and healthcare professional through biometric data. The evaluations indicated that the required attention allocated for the acquisition of information from the shape-changing interface was minimal. The interaction with the ambient display, as well as with the PDA when accessing additional clinical data, was deemed intuitive, yet comprised a short learning curve. Furthermore, the evaluations in situ pointed out that for optimised communication through the ambient displays, an overview of the health statuses of approximately eight patients should be displayed, and placed in the corridors of the hospital ward.