This paper describes a project aiming at developing a new alarm system for the dialysis department in Karlskrona, Sweden. We?ll present the approach we used in order to understand how the alarms was perceived and how the alarms influenced the nurses work practice. Our understanding of the alarm was used as a basis for the design process of creating a new alarm system together with the nurses. The alarm system we will present should not be thought of as the final system to be implemented, but rather as being used for further discussion about how to deal with alarms. The main audience for this paper are those who are interested in what you can learn from a narrow analysis of technology (alarms) in use and how an alarm might effect the way people act. Although we talk about design, that is not the key issue.