RapidRead: step-at-a-glance crisis checklists

Complex, perilous domains like surgery and aviation require accurate responses under extreme time constraints. Checklists improve important outcomes in these domains. However, current designs are based largely on intuition; there is little theory or empirical work about designing effective procedure aids. Furthermore, discretionary checklist use is fragmented and bursty rather than predictable and continuous. Working with doctors and studying successful aids, we developed the RapidRead design approach. It distills three patterns for designing rapidly readable aids: Dynamic Focus, Object-Action, and Information Patches. Two experiments compared medical professionals' search time, eye-gaze, and retention with alternative checklist designs. Applying RapidRead patterns resulted in significantly faster aid usage, reducing answer time and importantly minimizing the frequency of slow responses to medical queries.