SCOPE FOR USABILITY TESTS IN IS DEVELOPMENT

Despite being a common, established concept in wide usage, usability tests can vary greatly in goals, techniques and results. A usability test purchased and performed for a specific software product, may result in either minor user interface improvements or radical U-turns in the development. Such variation has been discussed as a problem of the scientific reliability and validity of the testing method. In practice it is more important what ‘kind of data’ one can expect of the selected method than whether it is reliably always the same data. This expectation of information content or ‘scope’ is of importance for evaluators, who select and conduct usability tests for a specific purpose. However, the scope is not explicitly stated or even discussed: Too often the premise is that, because a usability test involves users, it brings the (necessary) user-centeredness to the design i.e. takes socio-technical fundamentals as inherently given. Through a literature review of testing practices and analytical considerations, we search for the scope of a usability test, which could deliberately approach the socio-technical tradition and equally develop both the system and the user organization. A case example represents a possible realization of the extended scope of usability test

Scope of usability tests in IS development

Despite being a common, established concept in wide usage, usability tests can vary greatly in their goals, techniques, and results. A usability test that one purchases and performs for a specific software product may result in either minor user interface improvements or radical U-turns in development. Researchers have discussed such variation as a problem that concerns testing method’s scientific reliability and validity. In practice, what “kind of data” one can expect to obtain from the selected method has more importance than whether one always obtains the same data. This expectation about information content or “scope” has importance for those who select and conduct usability tests for a specific purpose. However, researchers rarely explicitly state or even discuss scope: too often they adopt the premise that, because a usability test involves users, it brings the (necessary) user-centeredness to the design (i.e., takes socio- technical fundamentals as inherently given). We reviewed the literature on testing practices and analytical consideration and searched for the scope of a usability test that could deliberately approach the socio-technical tradition and equally develop both the system and the user organization. A case example represents a possible realization of the extended scope of usability test.</p

Usability in healthcare : overcoming the mismatch between information systems and clinical work

Usability of clinical information technology (IT) systems is an ongoing topic of discussion. The systems should support healthcare professionals in their daily work with patients. However, critics indicate the prevalence of negative experiences and use related problems. The overall goal of the thesis is to examine the usability of current clinical IT systems from the viewpoint of physicians and nurses for the purposes of further user-centred system development. The thesis includes three empirical studies: a digital dictation study, evaluation of nursing documentation systems, and a national usability questionnaire study with physicians. The research was carried out utilizing contextual inquiry, interaction sequence illustration analysis, and tailored usability questionnaire methods. The research resulted in the following findings and conclusions. Currently used IT systems do not support the daily work and clinical tasks of clinicians well. This is due to numerous usability problems, and lack of computer support for multi-professional and cross-organizational collaboration between clinicians. Major improvements are needed to achieve the potential benefits clinical information and communication technology systems offer. Based on empirical studies, themes for potential improvements are: development of efficient and mobile documentation solutions, redesign of system user interfaces, solutions to support communication and collaboration, customisable and context-specific clinical IT systems, and conceptual redesign of nursing documentation system. In the field of health informatics, a need exists to broaden the scope of usability work. Usability is closely associated with evaluation and testing activities instead of design activities. Hence, the scope of usability is more restricted than it is in user-centred design and usability research fields. In order to overcome the current mismatch between IT systems and clinical work, it is important to understand that usability is extremely context-sensitive by nature. The study results indicated shortcomings in user-centred healthcare IT systems design and end-users' abilities to contribute to development work. User-centred design methods provide a variety of means to analyse, design, and evaluate information and communication systems for clinical purposes. However, the characteristics of the clinical context (e.g. privacy and data security issues, and the wide range of IT systems in use) need to be taken into account when applying the methods and performing research in real-life clinical surroundings

Development and user testing of a wellness data visualization solution

Use of information technology in health and wellness attracts a lot of attention these days from the general public, health care professionals, and the research community. A significant amount of research has been done lately in order to find ways to visualize health and wellness data in a holistic way which is easy to use and understand. The main objective of the thesis was to develop a health and wellness solution for visualizing the health and wellness status of an individual and monitoring his/her progress in the health and wellness coaching. The research focused on three main issues: 1) Devel-oping a Progress data component which allows for monitoring the adherence of clients to tasks and to see their performance, 2) integrating the component with two other com-ponents in the system to create a Health and wellness overview solution, and 3) testing and evaluation of the component and the solution to assess usability issues and to gather user feedback. The research followed a user-centered approach by focusing on the users and tasks from the beginning of the design process. This approach also included iterative design, with cycles of design, test, measure, and redesign. This approach was chosen to reach a high level of usability and user satisfaction by obtaining direct and indirect user feedback and requirements throughout the design process. After implementation, testing and evaluations were conducted in two phases, namely after the implementation of the Progress data component, and after the integration of the component with the rest of the system. The evaluations were conducted with two different types of potential users: general users, and experts in usability issues. Many different techniques and methods were used in the evaluation studies. These included four standardized usability questionnaires, and the comparison of the data between them, in order to obtain high levels of reliability of the data. The results showed a high level of satisfaction with all the metrics of usability of the system, with average responses between 5.66 and 6.60 in the 7-point Likert scale. With regard to overall user satisfaction, the results were equally positive in all four question-naires, with scores between 6.02 and 6.46 in the Likert scale. Some issues of interaction between the different components of the system still need further development, and the design should be evaluated on and, if need be, redesigned for, devices with different screen sizes. The results indicate that successful visualization can help people understand better their holistic health and wellness data