Better patient-doctor communication – a survey and focus group study

The study explored barriers to effective communication between doctors and patients, and to encourage patients to be more knowledgeable about their health. A survey was conducted with 128 people who commented on the effectiveness of the process of consulting their doctor and rated a number of alternatives to face-to-face consultations. A focus group explored the topics further and a range of possible solutions to address current barriers were suggested. These include: considering alternative methods for GP consultation, providing new systems to give doctors better overviews of the patient population, devising new methods for patients to record information from consultations, use of diagnostic systems in the surgery and meetings or online forums to promote better informed patients

Using human factors standards to support user experience and agile design

The ISO 9241-210 standard provides a framework for human-centred design (HCD) activities comprising the four stages: context of use, specification of user and organisational requirements, design solutions, and evaluation against requirements. Other parts of the 9241 standard cover user interface design and usability. This paper uses the HCD framework to emphasise user experience (UX) design and methods used to help create good user experiences. It also relates the framework to an agile software development environment. It is concluded that the flexible and iterative nature of ISO 9241-210 makes it a good basis for both user experience design and an agile development process

An analysis of specialist and non-specialist user requirements for geographic climate change information

The EU EuroClim project developed a system to monitor and record climate change indicator data based on satellite observations of snow cover, sea ice and glaciers in Northern Europe and the Arctic. It also contained projection data for temperature, rainfall and average wind speed for Europe. These were all stored as data sets in a GIS database for users to download. The process of gathering requirements for a user population including scientists, researchers, policy makers, educationalists and the general public is described. Using an iterative design methodology, a user survey was administered to obtain initial feedback on the system concept followed by panel sessions where users were presented with the system concept and a demonstrator to interact with it. The requirements of both specialist and non-specialist users is summarised together with strategies for the effective communication of geographic climate change information

Comparison test of website use with mobile phone and laptop computer

The study compared user performance and subjective ratings between a mobile phone and laptop computer for accessing the internet. Twenty four participants were required to carry out two equivalent sets of 5 tasks, one set of tasks with a mobile phone and the other set with a laptop. It was found that the task times for the mobile phone were higher than those of the laptop for all tasks but only significantly different for two of the task pairs. The most important reason for this result seemed to be the difference in size of the screens on each device. Participants were also asked to rate the difficulty of each task performed on both laptop and phone. Interestingly, participants did not rate the difficulty of using the mobile phone significantly higher than for the laptop. This seemed to be because of lower expectations when using the mobile phone, good dexterity in zooming in and out of the screen, and spending less time reviewing each page on the phone than on the laptop before moving on another page

A participatory approach to helicopter user interface design

The importance of involving users during user interface (UI) design activities is widely recognised however the nature of this involvement may vary significantly. This study investigated the benefits and challenges of applying Participatory Design (PD) during the development of helicopter UI. During the first phase, four helicopter design professionals were interviewed in order to understand their views on user involvement and current approaches. The second phase involved three helicopter test pilots and three human factors specialists participating in a PD workshop (based on design thinking) focussed on a helicopter UI design case study (the Automatic Flight Control System within a Royal Navy Merlin Mark 2). There was strong agreement from all the participants that user involvement is important and current approaches were described as mainly consultative. Benefits identified included a better understanding of the problem and context of use and therefore closer alignment of the design with user needs. The approach encouraged divergent thinking and benefitted from being multidisciplinary. Minor changes to the workshop format should be considered in order to minimise the risk of bias and make the best use of the participants’ time. This study developed a valuable approach to PD which is likely to be generalizable to other domains

Review of state of knowledge regarding the safety, access and usability needs of children with disabilities

Within European countries and the European Union, there is wide recognition that special consideration must be given to the needs of both people with disabilities and to young people. In terms of ergonomics design, consideration needs to be given to access to public buildings, safety in the home, school buildings and educational services, ability to make use of public transport, etc. This research focused on children who also have disabilities, an area that is less well understood and where it is uncertain whether standards or legislation exist. Interviews and discussions with experts were conducted to locate knowledge about design for disabled children in different contexts. This document reports the results of the research sponsored by ANEC (www.anec.org). The study identified relevant standards, legislation or guidelines within Europe and outside which could potentially be employed by the standards bodies within the European Union and promulgated more widely. The report also showed that there are gaps in knowledge indicating a requirement for further research to be carried out to generate suitable guidelines for standards bodies to consider

The journey to work as a barrier to continued employment in later life

Various economic, social and demographic factors have combined over recent years to make the promotion of longer productive working lives for older people a desirable policy objective. Although disability increases with age, many older workers lead healthy, active lives. With the UK Employment Equality (Age) Regulations (2006), employers now have to consider requests to continue working beyond retirement age, so the number and needs of older workers are likely to increase. Difficulty with the journey to work is one of the barriers to employment for older workers. Whilst owning a car increases independence and improves quality of life, the compensatory techniques that may be used by older drivers when driving becomes difficult (avoiding bad weather, darkness, rush hours and complex junctions) may not be easily applied to the journey to work. Public transport is not always an option, with journey time, cost and availability all being potential issues. Whilst there are new technologies in both public and private transport that could help, they may not be designed with the requirements and limitations of older workers in mind, restricting their usefulness. In addition, many older people experience conflicts with family commitments and activities. People can find themselves simultaneously caring for their parents, partners and grandchildren. These add to the complexity of journey planning and affect travel choices and decisions. This work describes the results of two focus groups in which older workers and employee representatives explored the key influence travelling to work has on employment. The information, support and technology that would enable older workers to adapt their travel to accommodate changing needs are highlighted, and the relationship between travel decisions and organisational factors is described. This work forms part of the “Working Late” project, a collaborative research project funded under the New Dynamics of Ageing Programme

Preliminary study of the cultural barriers which may affect universal access

Preliminary study of the cultural barriers which may affect universal acces

Culture and context: an empathic study of the needs of ethnic consumers in the UK

This paper describes a fresh approach to gathering rich data from ethnic minority consumers (EMCs) to better understand the affects of variations across subgroups upon consumers. The study investigated whether an EMC group in the UK face any barriers in the take-up of products or services. Subgroups in the study were defined as religion and generations to compare the differences and similarities of views and the effect of acculturalisation. An inductive, qualitative approach used family focus groups and some interviews with a questionnaire to set context. The research draws on previous cultural, marketing and design literature and current affairs and follows an inclusive design framework. The results successfully narrowed the research on a subgroup within the 1st generation and the usability of health services leading to a second study which is currently exploring the experiences of health services staff of providing care to EMCs to determine whether and how design may play a role in lowering barriers

Scenario analysis as a tool for informing the design of behaviour change interventions

This article presents the design process behind the specification of a behaviour change intervention method to promote energy saving. The amount of energy used for food preparation is highly influenced by people’s behaviours. A user-centred design approach based on scenario analysis was applied to provide understanding of context of use and specification of user requirements. This knowledge was applied to the design of behaviour change interventions to motivate sustainable behaviours