Support for systems development in mobile devices used in Emergency Management

Many mobile applications are developed every day. One important application domain is the Emergency Management. The use of mobile devices by emergency teams can play an important role during the response phase, where fast actions are essential. Applications in this domain can use mobile devices to support awareness, communication, coordination and collaboration, the four pillars of team work. In many cases, however, mobile devices are introduced only in substitution of radio communication. To enhance the use of mobile devices in emergency management a framework is needed to ensure that communication tools are built with the essential features for effective communication between teams and skilled emergency response. The goal of this paper is to assist software developers in dealing with communication problems in the development of mobile applications to support the emergency response.