Cognition in Context The effect of information and communication support on task performance of distributed professionals

All rights reserved. Subject to exceptions provided for by law, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. No part of this publication may be adapted in whole or in part without the prior written permission of the author. PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Twente, op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof. dr. Acknowledgements The mountain on the cover photo of this thesis is the Matterhorn in Switzerland. For me, this symbolises a context in which my cognition can relax and gets inspired. It also relates to pleasant feelings; beautiful views, exhausting journeys and other enjoyable activities with my family. This thesis is the result of my journey into human factors research in IT innovations at the Telematica Instituut. After having taken some deviations, I found the proper way, which resulted in this thesis. A journey I couldn't and didn't take on my own. First and foremost, I thank Janine Swaak for her guidance, her belief in me and her down to earth approach. I liked her positive attitude and her stimulating one-liners: 'you should only run, if you know where to run to' and 'there are various ways to Rome, and you should only take one of them, not all'. I would also like to thank my Ph.D. supervisor Anton Nijholt for his support and his challenging questions on critical issues, and Betsy van Dijk for her assistance with the statistical analyses and her critical reviews. Thanks are also due to Chris Vissers, Eric Backer and Hermen van der Lugt for their support in finalising the train simulator for my research. van der Velde and all the train drivers, railway signallers, district nurses and dermatologists for making it possible to perform the experiments! Special thanks go the application engineers-Martin Wibbels, Jaap Reitsma, Hans Kruse and William van Dieten – for building the applications that are used in the experiments. I owe many thanks to Henny de Vos, Cees Glas and Peter Geurts for their second opinion on the statistical analyses. My colleagues at the Telematica Instituut created a pleasant and stimulating work environment. Special thanks go to Mark van Setten for providing a listening ear and for his practical advice on writing the thesis, …