72,543 research outputs found

    FEeSU - A Framework for Evaluating eHealth Systems Usability: A Case of Tanzania Health Facilities

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    Adopting eHealth systems in the health sector has changed the means of providing health services and increased the quality of service in many countries. The usability of these systems needs to be evaluated from time to time to reduce or completely avoid the possibility of jeopardizing the patients’ data, medication errors, etc. However, the existing frameworks are not country context sensitive since they are designed with the mindset of practices in developed countries. Such developed countries’ contexts have different cultures, resource settings, and levels of computer literacy compared to developing countries such as Tanzania. This paper presents the framework for evaluating eHealth system usability (FEeSU) that is designed with a focus on developing country contexts and tested in Tanzania. Healthcare professionals, including doctors, nurses, laboratory technologists, and pharmacists, were the main participants in this research to acquire practice-oriented requirements based on their experience, best practices, and healthcare norms. The framework comprises six steps to be followed in the evaluation process. These steps are associated with important components, including usability metrics, stakeholders, usability evaluation methods, and contextual issues necessary for usability evaluation. The proposed usability evaluation framework could be used as guidelines by different e-health system stakeholders when preparing, designing, and performing the evaluation of the usability of a system. Keywords: Usability metrics, Usability evaluation Contextual issues eHealth systems Framework for usability evaluation FEeSU. DOI: 10.7176/CEIS/10-1-01 Publication date:September 30th 202

    Suggestion systems: a usability-based evaluation model

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    Usability has been used to design and assess products and websites. This paper takes the concept of usability one step further and proposes a framework to assess suggestion systems. Thus taking the concept of usability one step further and applying it in the area of ideas management through suggestion system. The fundamental premise of the article is that a suggestion system designed, with usability in mind, will improve innovation among employees, and hence increase participation. This framework was then used to assess four suggestion systems in an oil and gas company in the middle-east. These systems were further assessed for employee perception of their usability and participation. After collecting data on these three different aspects conclusions are drawn. Out of the four systems analyzed, the most usable suggestion system had the highest participation rate and the least usable system attracted the fewest suggestions

    Holistic approaches to e‐learning accessibility

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    The importance of accessibility to digital e‐learning resources is widely acknowledged. The World Wide Web Consortium Web Accessibility Initiative has played a leading role in promoting the importance of accessibility and developing guidelines that can help when developing accessible web resources. The accessibility of e‐learning resources provides additional challenges. While it is important to consider the technical and resource related aspects of e‐learning when designing and developing resources for students with disabilities, there is a need to consider pedagogic and contextual issues as well. A holistic framework is therefore proposed and described, which in addition to accessibility issues takes into account learner needs, learning outcomes, local factors, infrastructure, usability and quality assurance. The practical application and implementation of this framework is discussed and illustrated through the use of examples and case studies

    A guidance and evaluation approach for mHealth education applications

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    © Springer International Publishing AG 2017. A growing number of mobile applications for health education are being utilized to support different stakeholders, from health professionals to software developers to patients and more general users. There is a lack of a critical evaluation framework to ensure the usability and reliability of these mobile health education applications (MHEAs). Such a framework would facilitate the saving of time and effort for the different user groups. This paper describes a framework for evaluating mobile applications for health education, including a guidance tool to help different stakeholders select the one most suitable for them. The framework is intended to meet the needs and requirements of the different user categories, as well as improving the development of MHEAs through software engineering approaches. A description of the evaluation framework is provided, with its efficient hybrid of selected heuristic evaluation (HE) and usability evaluation (UE) factors. Lastly, an account of the quantitative and qualitative results for the framework applied to the Medscape and other mobile apps is given. This proposed framework - an Evaluation Framework for Mobile Health Education Apps - consists of a hybrid of five metrics selected from a larger set during heuristic and usability evaluation, the choice being based on interviews with patients, software developers and health professionals

    The assessment of usability of electronic shopping: A heuristic evaluation

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    Today there are thousands of electronic shops accessible via the Web. Some provide user-friendly features whilst others seem not to consider usability factors at all. Yet, it is critical that the electronic shopping interface is user-friendly so as to help users to obtain their desired results. This study applied heuristic evaluation to examine the usability of current electronic shopping. In particular, it focused on four UK-based supermarkets offering electronic services: including ASDA, Iceland, Sainsbury, and Tesco. The evaluation consists of two stages: a free-flow inspection and a task-based inspection. The results indicate that the most significant and common usability problems have been found to lie within the areas of ‘User Control and Freedom’ and ‘Help and Documentation’. The findings of this study are applied to develop a set of usability guidelines to support the future design of effective interfaces for electronic shopping

    Usability Evaluation in Virtual Environments: Classification and Comparison of Methods

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    Virtual environments (VEs) are a relatively new type of human-computer interface in which users perceive and act in a three-dimensional world. The designers of such systems cannot rely solely on design guidelines for traditional two-dimensional interfaces, so usability evaluation is crucial for VEs. We present an overview of VE usability evaluation. First, we discuss some of the issues that differentiate VE usability evaluation from evaluation of traditional user interfaces such as GUIs. We also present a review of VE evaluation methods currently in use, and discuss a simple classification space for VE usability evaluation methods. This classification space provides a structured means for comparing evaluation methods according to three key characteristics: involvement of representative users, context of evaluation, and types of results produced. To illustrate these concepts, we compare two existing evaluation approaches: testbed evaluation [Bowman, Johnson, & Hodges, 1999], and sequential evaluation [Gabbard, Hix, & Swan, 1999]. We conclude by presenting novel ways to effectively link these two approaches to VE usability evaluation

    Investigating the appropriateness and relevance of mobile web accessibility guidelines

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    The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develop and maintain guidelines for making the web more accessible to people with disabilities. WCAG 2.0 and the MWBP 1.0 are internationally regarded as the industry standard guidelines for web accessibility. Mobile testing sessions conducted by AbilityNet document issues raised by users in a report format, relating issues to guidelines wherever possible. This paper presents the results of a preliminary investigation that examines how effectively and easily these issues can be related by experts to the guidelines provided by WCAG 2.0 and MWBP 1.0. Copyright 2014 ACM
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