Usability and Psychosocial Impact of Decision Support to Increase Sexual Health Education in American Indian and Alaska Native Communities

Despite sexual and reproductive health disparities, few evidence-based sexual health education programs exist for American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) youth, with even fewer tools available to assist AI/AN communities in adopting, implementing, and maintaining such programs. iCHAMPSS (Choosing And Maintaining effective Programs for Sex education in Schools) is a theory- and web-based decision-support-system designed to address dissemination barriers and increase the reach and fidelity of evidence-based programs (EBPs), specifically sexual health education programs. To investigate the potential of iCHAMPSS in AI/AN communities, we pilot-tested iCHAMPSS with adult stakeholders (N = 36) from agencies across the country that serve AI/AN communities. Stakeholders were recruited to review selected iCHAMPSS tools over two weeks in spring 2016. Pre- and post-surveys were administered to assess usability constructs, short-term psychosocial outcomes, and perceived feasibility. Data were analyzed using descriptive and non-parametric statistics. iCHAMPSS was perceived as acceptable, easy to use, credible, appealing, more helpful than current resources, and impactful of EBP adoption, implementation, and maintenance. Conversely, using iCHAMPSS significantly increased participants’ perceived barriers to adopting an EBP (p = 0.01). Overall, AI/AN stakeholders responded positively to iCHAMPSS, indicating the potential for adaptation to support the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based sexual health education in AI/AN communities

Evaluating the End-User Experience of Private Browsing Mode

Nowadays, all major web browsers have a private browsing mode. However, the mode's benefits and limitations are not particularly understood. Through the use of survey studies, prior work has found that most users are either unaware of private browsing or do not use it. Further, those who do use private browsing generally have misconceptions about what protection it provides. However, prior work has not investigated \emph{why} users misunderstand the benefits and limitations of private browsing. In this work, we do so by designing and conducting a three-part study: (1) an analytical approach combining cognitive walkthrough and heuristic evaluation to inspect the user interface of private mode in different browsers; (2) a qualitative, interview-based study to explore users' mental models of private browsing and its security goals; (3) a participatory design study to investigate why existing browser disclosures, the in-browser explanations of private browsing mode, do not communicate the security goals of private browsing to users. Participants critiqued the browser disclosures of three web browsers: Brave, Firefox, and Google Chrome, and then designed new ones. We find that the user interface of private mode in different web browsers violates several well-established design guidelines and heuristics. Further, most participants had incorrect mental models of private browsing, influencing their understanding and usage of private mode. Additionally, we find that existing browser disclosures are not only vague, but also misleading. None of the three studied browser disclosures communicates or explains the primary security goal of private browsing. Drawing from the results of our user study, we extract a set of design recommendations that we encourage browser designers to validate, in order to design more effective and informative browser disclosures related to private mode

Early evaluation of Unistats: user experiences

This paper sets out the findings of the user evaluation of Unistats.UK Higher Education Funding Bodie

Privacy CURE: Consent Comprehension Made Easy

Although the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) defines several potential legal bases for personal data processing, in many cases data controllers, even when they are located outside the European Union (EU), will need to obtain consent from EU citizens for the processing of their personal data. Unfortunately, existing approaches for obtaining consent, such as pages of text followed by an agreement/disagreement mechanism, are neither specific nor informed. In order to address this challenge, we introduce our Consent reqUest useR intErface (CURE) prototype, which is based on the GDPR requirements and the interpretation of those requirements by the Article 29 Working Party (i.e., the predecessor of the European Data Protection Board). The CURE prototype provides transparency regarding personal data processing, more control via a customization, and, based on the results of our usability evaluation, improves user comprehension with respect to what data subjects actually consent to. Although the CURE prototype is based on the GDPR requirements, it could potentially be used in other jurisdictions also

Issues in Evaluating Health Department Web-Based Data Query Systems: Working Papers

Compiles papers on conceptual and methodological topics to consider in evaluating state health department systems that provide aggregate data online, such as taxonomy, logic models, indicators, and design. Includes surveys and examples of evaluations

Usefulness and Usability of a Personal Health Record and Survivorship Care Plan for Colorectal Cancer Survivors: Survey Study

Background: As a result of improvements in cancer screening, treatment, and supportive care, nearly two-thirds of individuals diagnosed with colorectal cancer (CRC) live for 5 years after diagnosis. An ever-increasing population of CRC survivors creates a need for effective survivorship care to help manage and mitigate the impact of CRC and its treatment. Personal health records (PHRs) and survivorship care plans provide a means of supporting the long-term care of cancer survivors. Objective: The purpose of this study is to characterize the usefulness of a CRC PHR and survivorship care plan and to describe the usability of these technologies in a population of CRC survivors. To our knowledge, this is the first study to assess a PHR and survivorship care plan specifically targeting CRC survivors. Methods: Twenty-two patients with CRC were recruited from surgery clinics of an academic medical center and Veterans Affairs hospital in Indianapolis and provided access to an online Colorectal Cancer Survivor’s Personal Health Record (CRCS-PHR). Survey data were collected to characterize the usefulness of the CRCS-PHR and describe its usability in a population of CRC survivors. CRC survivors were surveyed 6 months after being provided online access. Means and proportions were used to describe the usefulness and ease of using the CRC website. Open-ended questions were qualitatively coded using the constant comparative method. Results: CRC survivors perceived features related to their health care (ie, summary of cancer treatment history, follow-up care schedule, description of side effects, and list of community resources) to be more useful than communication features (ie, creating online relationships with family members or caregivers, communicating with doctor, and secure messages). CRC survivors typically described utilizing traditional channels (eg, via telephone or in person) to communicate with their health care provider. Participants had overall positive perceptions with respect to ease of use and overall satisfaction. Major challenges experienced by participants included barriers to system log-in, lack of computer literacy or experience, and difficulty entering their patient information. Conclusions: For CRC, survivors may find the greater value in a PHR’s medical content than the communication functions, which they have available elsewhere. These findings regarding the usefulness and usability of a PHR for the management of CRC survivorship provide valuable insights into how best to tailor these technologies to patients’ needs. These findings can inform future design and development of PHRs for purposes of both cancer and chronic disease management

Information systems evaluation methodologies

Due to the prevalent use of Information Systems (IS) in modern organisations nowadays, evaluation research in this field is becoming more and more important. In light of this, a set of rigorous methodologies were developed and used by IS researchers and practitioners to evaluate the increasingly complex IS implementation used. Moreover, different types of IS and different focusing perspectives of the evaluation require the selection and use of different evaluation approaches and methodologies. This paper aims to identify, explore, investigate and discuss the various key methodologies that can be used in IS evaluation from different perspectives, namely in nature (e.g. summative vs. formative evaluation) and in strategy (e.g. goal-based, goal-free and criteria-based evaluation). The paper concludes that evaluation methodologies should be selected depending on the nature of the IS and the specific goals and objectives of the evaluation. Nonetheless, it is also proposed that formative criteria-based evaluation and summative criteria-based evaluation are currently among the most and more widely used in IS research. The authors suggest that the combines used of one or more of these approaches can be applied at different stages of the IS life cycle in order to generate more rigorous and reliable evaluation outcomes

Current Practices for Product Usability Testing in Web and Mobile Applications

Software usability testing is a key methodology that ensures applications are intuitive and easy to use for the target audience. Usability testing has direct benefits for companies as usability improvements often are fundamental to the success of a product. A standard usability test study includes the following five steps: obtain suitable participants, design test scripts, conduct usability sessions, interpret test outcomes, and produce recommendations. Due to the increasing importance for more usable applications, effective techniques to develop usable products, as well as technologies to improve usability testing, have been widely utilized. However, as companies are developing more cross-platform web and mobile apps, traditional single-platform usability testing has shortcomings with respect to ensuring a uniform user experience. In this report, a new strategy is proposed to promote a consistent user experience across all application versions and platforms. This method integrates the testing of different application versions, e.g., the website, mobile app, mobile website. Participants are recruited with a better-defined criterion according to their preferred devices. The usability session is conducted iteratively on several different devices, and the test results of individual application versions are compared on a per-device basis to improve the test outcomes. This strategy is expected to extend on current practices for usability testing by incorporating cross-platform consistency of software versions on most devices