Several researchers and contingency agencies have suggested good practices for crisis management exercises. Resource-constrained practitioners in the field report difficulties finding cost-efficient ways to maintain exercise cycles. This paper draws on experiences from working with professional crisis response coordinators who adapted material for table-top exercises to learning management systems, executed the exercises and evaluated team performance. This paper discusses the elimination of bottlenecks and unexpected benefits arising from more flexible exercise designs in terms of synchrony, continuity, and location. While these concepts capture the essence of the various opportunities for flexibility, they need some supporting features in the design of digital exercises. This paper argues for putting emphasis on the writing/speech dichotomy when analysing exercise designs from the perspective of the entire exercise life cycle, including evaluations and preparations for further exercises. Additionally, how requests for individual answers are planned appears to be an effective instrument for efficient exercise design and evaluation during the conducting of an exercise.

Several researchers and contingency agencies have suggested good practices for crisis management exercises. Resource-constrained practitioners in the field report difficulties finding cost-efficient ways to maintain exercise cycles. This paper draws on experiences from working with professional crisis response coordinators who adapted material for table-top exercises to learning management systems, executed the exercises and evaluated team performance. This paper discusses the elimination of bottlenecks and unexpected benefits arising from more flexible exercise designs in terms of synchrony, continuity, and location. While these concepts capture the essence of the various opportunities for flexibility, they need some supporting features in the design of digital exercises. This paper argues for putting emphasis on the writing/speech dichotomy when analysing exercise designs from the perspective of the entire exercise life cycle, including evaluations and preparations for further exercises. Additionally, how requests for individual answers are planned appears to be an effective instrument for efficient exercise design and evaluation during the conducting of an exercise.

This case study describes a usability testing course in which students learn by practicing several evaluation methods. The on-campus format makes it possible for teachers and students to meet to discuss recorded test sessions and students can observe other students’ execution of pilot studies conducted on campus. The COVID-19 pandemic placed new demands on this course. In-person activities were avoided by some students and many test participants. Some student teams tried remote usability testing. Interestingly, screen recordings (with sound) of the test sessions show that remote testing sometimes helped the students focus more on observation and less on (inappropriately) guiding the test subjects. Another effect was that the students found it easier to recruit participants than during the previous years when the university was teeming with students, lecturers, and non-academic staff. However, the recruited participants were often notably limited to the students’ circles of friends.

The graphical and interactive design of a consent form helps individuals to keep control and pay attention to the information that they are disclosing. In the context of mobile apps we propose and test alternative interaction design solutions for selecting personal information on permission dialogues, namely using checkboxes, a drag-and-drop selection, and a swiping action. We test each proposed design and compare the results in terms of their usability and effectiveness in helping users to be more attentive and aware of their data flow, in other words, to provide their informed consent. This study demonstrates that checkboxes while speedy do not engage the user as much as drag-and-drop or swiping. User satisfaction is positively impacted by these newer ways of giving consent.

This book discusses the role of human computer interaction (HCI) design in fostering digital literacy and promoting socio-cultural acceptance and usage of the  latest ICT innovations in developing countries. The book presents techniques, theories, case studies, and methodologies in HCI design approaches that have been used to foster digital literacy, break the socio-cultural barriers to ICT adoption, and promote the widespread usage of the latest innovations in the health, agriculture, economic, education and social sectors in developing countries. The authors provide insights on how crossing disciplines in HCI such as usability design, user centered design, user experience, anticipated user experience, technology acceptance design, persuasive design, philosophical designs, motivational design, social-cultural oriented designs, and other HCI design approaches have promoted digital literacy and stimulated socio-cultural acceptance and the usage of the latest ICT innovations. The book is relevant in academic, industry and government.

Presents theoretical, practical, and socio-cultural approaches to digital literacy challenges in developing countries;Discusses recent ICT and HCI innovations used to transform the health, agriculture, economic, education and social sectors in developing countries;Provides insights on design opportunities and challenges presented in countries where digital literacy is very low and with complex socio-cultural dynamics.

Genomförandet av övningar är en nyckel till stärkt förmåga att agera effektivt i kris. CriseIT-projekten har haft som mål att bidra till detta genom att skapa möjligheter för kommuner och andra aktörer med krisövningsbehov att öva enklare och oftare.

Det finns en önskan om, och en medvetenhet om behoven av, att öva mer än vad som görs i nuläget i många organisationer. Digitala verktyg är ett sätt att göra det möjligt att öva oftare, med lägre resursåtgång och kortare tid för planering och genomförande. Corona-pandemin har ytterligare gjort det tydligt vilka möjligheter digitaliseringen innebär för att effektivisera processer som tidigare varit inramade av tids-och rumsbegränsningar –t.ex. övning.

Denna rapport syftar till att på ett lättillgängligt sätt redogöra för och diskutera utmaningar och möjligheter med den digitala övningsprocessen, så som den kommit till uttryck i CriseIT-projekten, genom att beskriva metodiska arbetssätt för design, genomförande och utvärdering av digitala krisövningar samt några perspektiv på implementering av digital övningsmetodik i organisationer. Målgrupp för rapporten är den som arbetar med krisberedskap i offentlig eller privat verksamhet, och som önskar lära sig mer om möjligheten att digitalisera sin övningsprocess. Arbetsrapporten är del av resultatredovisning för CriseIT2.

The adage practice makes perfect is well-known by safety coordinators and national contingency agencies. However, it has been reported that managers outside the rescue forces have difficulties finding the time to participate in exercises to become able members of their own organisations’ crisis management teams. Moreover, trainers would welcome uncomplicated digital tools for planning and preparing exercises.

To address this, a concept geared towards table-top (seminar) exercises was developed and used in several pilot exercises with trainees who did not belong to the project. We also undertook two demonstration exercises for professionals affiliated with the project, where representatives from different organisations worked through exercise scenarios. Here, we report on these demonstration exercises. Although the participants made good progress through these exercises and also enjoyed the experience sharing opportunities they provided, we noted that there were some traps that lessened the efficient performance of the ICT-supported crisis management training.

Övning ger färdighet och det gäller inte bara i traditionell undervisning utan också vid krisledning. Krisledning kännetecknas av att medlemmarna i en krisledningsgrupp ska ansvara för sina respektive verksamhetsområden och genom snabb interaktion och samordning över verksamhetsgränserna mildra effekterna av krisen för organisationen eller samhället som helhet. Det innebär att rollmedvetenhet och kommunikationsförmåga måste tränas för den enskilde så väl som för gruppen som helhet. På gruppnivå är också samverkan och koordinering internt och externt viktigt att öva. Tidigare studier visar att organisationer är intresserade av möjligheten att öva mer via digitala verktyg (Wik et al., 2017). Inom ramen för det till och med 2021 pågående Interregprojektet CriseIT 2 utvecklar vi ett koncept för övningsstöd baserat på lärplattformar. Kapitlet beskriver genom en fallstudie hur en seminarieövning kan genomföras med stöd av lärplattformen Canvas. Data till studien har samlats in genom observationer, enkäter, storgruppsdiskussion och deltagarnas indata till Canvas. Erfarenheter från fallstudien sammanfattas i möjligheter, problem och förbättringsbehov kopplade till Canvas och övningsdesignen, och rekommendationer ges både för krisövning och för undervisning baserad på problematisering och dilemmaövningar i klassrummet.

Privacy notices and consent forms are the means of conveying privacy policy information to users. In Europe, a valid consent needs to be confirmed by a clear affirmative action. Despite previous research, it is not yet clear whether user engagement with consent forms via different types of interactions for confirming consent may play a significant role in effectively drawing user attention to the content, even after repeated exposure. We investigate, in a laboratory study, how different types of interactions that engage users with consent forms differ in terms of their effectiveness, efficiency, and user satisfaction. In addition, we examine if and how habituation affects user attention and satisfaction, and the time they spend on giving their consent. We conducted a controlled experiment with 80 participants in four different groups where people either were engaged actively with the policy content via Drag and Drop (DAD), Swipe, or Checkboxes, or were not actively engaged with the content (as the control condition) in a first-exposure phase and in a habituation phase. We measured user attention to consent forms along multiple dimensions, including direct, objective measurements and indirect, self-reported measures. Our results show that the different types of interactions

may affect user attention to certain parts of policy information. In particular, the DAD action results in significantly more user attention to the data items compared to other groups. However, with repeated exposure to consent forms, the difference disappears. We conclude that user engagement with policy content needs to be designed with care, so that attention to substantial policy information is increased and not negatively affected.