A Multimodal Alarm System for Risk Management in a Clinical Lab

In this article, the authors aim at finding a way to effectively communicate situations of risk related to work safety, by catching workers' attention without interrupting their main task. They designed a multimodal alarm solution specifically conceived for a biomedical lab, where workers might be intoxicated due to the possible leak of reagents or to excessive exposure to potentially toxic substances. The authors propose a novel multimodal alarm system which makes use of different sensory modalities, touch and vision. In particular, it exploits wearable technologies to improve the effectiveness of the alarm in the context. In details, it offers 1) tactile alarm to catch user attention, 2) different alarm modalities for collective and personal risks, 3) visual cue to provide immediate diagnostic information on the risk source, and more detailed information on the risk nature. In this article, the authors describe a pilot test in the real context of use to inform the design of the system. The results are promising for the development of the solution.