Arching from Function to Form—Important Design Elements of Simulation Exercises (SimEx) in Emergency Response and Disaster Risk Management

With Rasmussen’s abstraction hierarchy as starting point, the present article focuses on understanding some of aspects guiding development a simulation exercise (SimEx) from multi-faceted perspective, based interviews and post-exercise evaluations conducted with both designers participants. The results show that, in order to achieve its overarching objective, an must fulfill wide range “functions”, which turn can take various kinds “forms” or actual representations physical world. paper discusses number identified required functions SimEx, sometimes labeled design elements, furthermore elaborates differences specific requirements at form level, e.g., virtual vs. exercises.