user centered design approaches and methods for p5 ehealth

As seen throughout this book, eHealth informed by P5 approach gives full recognition to patients' contexts, needs, desires, and personal characteristics. These aspects should not only be considered as cornerstones for technology evaluation, but as fundamental guidelines for design in the first place. This relates to User-Centered Design, that is, any technology/service design where final users influence how the design itself takes place. In other words, eHealth development should be based on research data gathered among final users about their needs and contexts of use, in order to be specifically tailored on final users even before the realization of low-level prototypes. This methodological contribution presents a critical presentation, description, and evaluation of research tools to be employed not to evaluate technology's results and effectiveness, but the specific characteristics of users in order to orient design and development. Such an approach should be considered the "gold standard" of P5 eHealth solutions

Example of a visual agenda.

<p>This was created for an internal workshop held to gather ideas for a website redesign process. Visual agendas are useful for setting the creative tone needed for successful interactive workshops.</p

Example room layout for an interactive workshop.

<p>This bird's-eye view shows the setup for supporting group-based, facilitated activities around a specific topic, problem, or project. The moderator oversees the workshop with the help of facilitators, who are briefed in the aims and methods of the activities. Alternatives include “circuit training” layout, where each table is an activity station and the participants move around the room.</p

Example of a workshop artefact: The output of the “Speed Boat” activity.

<p>The aim of this activity is to identify improvements that need to be made, for instance, to a product or service. The boat and anchors are drawn on paper as a template before the workshop. During the activity, the groups add their ideas in pen: they write the goal of the workshop on the boat and the challenges to achieving this goal by the anchors. We also include “positive forces for change”—things that are moving the project towards the goal—as “wind arrows” flanking the boat. The sticky notes have been added after the activity by the facilitator during the presenting-back stage and group discussion. The sticky notes have been labelled with the letters A to E for reference; note that a labelling scheme may be helpful for the analysis and report. This activity was adapted from p. 206 in <a href="http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003485#pcbi.1003485-Gray1" target="_blank">[5]</a>; also watch this video for more hints: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwVbcioYvdM" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwVbcioYvdM</a>.</p

Bioinformatics meets user-centred design: a perspective.

Designers have a saying that "the joy of an early release lasts but a short time. The bitterness of an unusable system lasts for years." It is indeed disappointing to discover that your data resources are not being used to their full potential. Not only have you invested your time, effort, and research grant on the project, but you may face costly redesigns if you want to improve the system later. This scenario would be less likely if the product was designed to provide users with exactly what they need, so that it is fit for purpose before its launch. We work at EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), and we consult extensively with life science researchers to find out what they need from biological data resources. We have found that although users believe that the bioinformatics community is providing accurate and valuable data, they often find the interfaces to these resources tricky to use and navigate. We believe that if you can find out what your users want even before you create the first mock-up of a system, the final product will provide a better user experience. This would encourage more people to use the resource and they would have greater access to the data, which could ultimately lead to more scientific discoveries. In this paper, we explore the need for a user-centred design (UCD) strategy when designing bioinformatics resources and illustrate this with examples from our work at EMBL-EBI. Our aim is to introduce the reader to how selected UCD techniques may be successfully applied to software design for bioinformatics

An overview of the user-centred design process.

<p>User-centred design focuses on the needs of the user, ensuring that the end product is fit for purpose. Once you have an idea for creating a new resource, or improving your existing resource, the key stages are: 1) Defining your goals and identifying your audience. 2) Characterising your users and their needs. 3) Designing mock-ups of your product. 4) Building prototypes of selected mock-ups and testing these with your users. 5) Writing the technical specifications and building the product. The UCD process is iterative; you continue to involve your users as you make improvements.</p