A user-centered information and communication technology (ICT) tool to improve safety inspections

• We examined current safety inspection practices and the related drawbacks.
• We used a user-centered design to develop an iPad tool to address such drawbacks.
• We tested the tool in the field and it has proved to be useful and practical.
• The tool allows collecting consistent data to be used in advanced analysis methods.

Occupational safety is imperative in construction, and safety inspection is among the most common practices that help enforce job safety on site. The safety inspection process, however, suffers from several drawbacks that hinder the efficiency, effectiveness, and analytical learning capacity of the process. Dedicated tools for user-centered information and communications technology could significantly reduce such drawbacks. This paper discusses the use of an original two-step user-centered design approach to develop and evaluate an iPad application that aims to address such drawbacks and improve the day-to-day practices and management of safety inspections. Evaluation results indicate the usefulness and practicality of the application and identify innovative uses not previously envisioned. Furthermore, the developed tool allows consistent data collection that can eventually be used to aid the development of advanced safety and health data analysis techniques.