Observational Studies of a Trauma Care Team in Support of Interface Design

The interface to a decision-support system must be designed around the communicative practices and needs of its intended audience, if the system is to be eeec-tive. We present results of observational studies at one hospital that are relevant to the interface design of an implemented trauma decision-support system, called TraumAID. These observations may prove useful to other researchers intending to implement similar systems. In addition, the study methodology may itself be of use to others when experimental studies of different interface versions are not possible, or to help design such studies when they are.