by KLI | Aug 28, 2015 | Medical, Personas, usability, UX
by Jonathan Knopf
Whether you ask patients, physicians, or administrators, they all have the same overall opinion of the healthcare system. “Its all over the place.” Your typical radiologist and primary care physician likely have complete different workflows, communication channels, and software systems to document a patient’s care and clearly don’t communicate to each other.
Usability in healthcare is unique in that the creation of more usable systems not only saves time and money on development, but it can also save lives! Some of the usability problems apparent in electronic medical records (EMR) and electronic health records (EHR) include: violations of natural dialog, control consistency, effective use of language, effective information presentation, and customization principles, as well as a lack of error prevention, minimization of cognitive load, and feedback.
As both a UX/UI designer of medical software and a recent ACL reconstruction patient, I became aware of several usability challenges that make designing software for EMR/HER software quite complex. In this article, I will detail five challenges that I have observed and some recommendations for ensuring maximum user satisfaction.
- Legacy Software and Software Lifetime
- This is one of the biggest roadblocks to user satisfaction as making UI improvements may ultimately lead to a Frankenstein software appearance; great UI components may stick out like a sore thumb when added to an old product. There is a lot of fear involved in improving the look and feel of medical software, particularly due to the risk of user error involved with unfamiliarity. This fear should not impede the progress of the product. Software suppliers could potentially risk more by not modernizing their software. Prior to rolling out a UI overhaul, make sure your users are on board with your changes. If not, make sure they have the ability to revert to a previous version (ex. “Modern View” vs. “Classic View”).
- Personas, Personas, Personas
- In healthcare, personas are not primarily for patients, but rather for the specific types of health care providers who use software to treat their patients. The differences between how an admin uses EMR software and how a radiologist uses it are drastically different, both in motivators, features needed, and workflow. It is absolutely critical that you focus on identifying each provider’s persona so you can ensure that the software is providing optimal relevance, efficiency, and ease of use for their workflow. With so many abbreviations and acronyms in the medical world, make sure you are using terms that are familiar to all of your personas.
- UI Design Alignment and Customization
- If you manage more than one UI with different features and workflows, you will need to consider the value of customizing vs. standardizing. Standardization is preferred, but maximizing workflow efficiency is likely more important to users than maintaining the same look and feel. Wherever possible, put your designs in front of your various personas and conduct UX research to determine their preferences and needs.
- Intuitiveness and Cognitive Load
- One of the biggest issues with healthcare software comes from a lack of natural intuitiveness in designs and language. Interfaces should be designed to minimize the cognitive workload on users, not rely on them to follow instructions from a manual, which they seldom read. Elements should be positioned where they follow a simple logical order, provide clear feedback regarding next steps, and minimize the number of steps needed to complete an action.
- Error Handling
- A usability concern that appears in every user facing system is its error handling. Make sure that your error messages are placed within the context of the error location, provide visual clues that an error has occurred, and show the user where the error is located. Visual error feedback should be displayed as soon as possible, not after a form has already been submitted. Provide clear and simple instructions as to how the error can be corrected and, where possible, do not allow the user to advance beyond the error point until it has been corrected. Error handling is another important component to put in front of users. Human factors testing can determine if the users see the messages and are able to take the necessary steps to correct them.
Key Lime Interactive is a usability research and augmented staffing agency capable of identifying any usability issues in medical devices and software since 2009. If you are experiencing some of these challenges with your medical device software and need a strategic roadmap for improvement, contact us at info@keylimeinteractive.com.
by KLI | Oct 7, 2014 | Conferences, Personas, UX
by Kelly Nercess
Where do your social preferences lie when you think of a typical Friday night? Do you envision dancing the night away with a group of friends at the hottest nightclub? Or opt for a more laid-back evening with the latest Stephen King novel and a glass of wine in front of the fire? By choosing a preference, you are also declaring the trait of an introvert or an extrovert. Mike Townson shared his insights to the topic of introverts and extroverts at the Big Design conference in Dallas last month. How does this concept impact your ability to screen the right participants for your study goals?
On the scale of introverts and extroverts, sometimes there is no clear direction. You might feel drawn towards one side of the spectrum or you may find yourself smack dab in the middle. I, for one, can totally relate to this idea. I learned there is a word for that, we’re called Ambiverts by Townson. We “can be considered moderately comfortable with groups and social interaction, but also relishing time alone, away from a crowd.” They are an intermediate between an introvert and an extrovert and share the same qualities that are possessed by both personalities. As an Ambivert, I can prefer quiet nights alone re-energizing my mind by simply keeping my thoughts to myself. Activities might include getting lost in a new book or reorganizing my kitchen. I get easily exhausted when I am constantly surrounded by people or feel the need to entertain others. On the other end, I do frequently enjoy social outings and I like to engage and interact with other people that are similar to me. I find comfort in a Friday night out with friends sharing our weekly stories over a beer.
Aside from my personal take on the topic, what does this mean for the UX industry? How do personality traits of an introvert and an extrovert really affect the moderator that is conducting an in-lab Qualitative study with a one-on-one interview, or a focus group? The loudest person in the room and the most outgoing is the right one in a focus group. That is absolutely not true. User Experience focuses on introverts and getting in to their minds and what they think and pulling out their thoughts and making them feel comfortable to share their opinions. When you are in the interview process to gain participants, it shouldn’t be about having the outgoing extrovert personality. It doesn’t mean that they are always the best candidate for the study and can get the most valuable information because they are the loudest.
Even being classified as an introvert or extrovert can play a considerable role in an office environment. It can determine whether a person is better suited in a cubicle setting with frequent loud conversations happening around them, or a more excluded setting that includes a private office and fewer distractions. So Townson poses the question, “How can we have a more friendly work environment for all personality types?” Well, the answer may be simple by using these tactics:
- Quiet time blocks
- Check with someone over IM/email before coming over to talk with them
- Huddle rooms for quick conversations
- Phone “booths” for conference calls
Management styles should adapt when considering introverts and extroverts. Ideally a mixed management style that caters to both personalities. Take advice from all angles and don’t exclude particular insights because it may come from someone else with a different personality. The allure of living in a society that can be considered a melting pot allows us to gain different points of views – leverage that!
Overall, I was able to learn a great deal from Mike Townson about the psychology behind introverts and extroverts and how we can incorporate these personalities in to not only the UX world, but also our daily lives. So now I pose the question, where do you think you fall on the spectrum?
by KLI | Sep 9, 2014 | Archived Press Releases, ethnio, Personas, Strategy, usability, UX Maturity
by Kelly Nercess
Ever think about the interactions you have with a company? How each precise moment may seem tailored to your needs and catered towards the experience you are looking for? In the UX industry there is a technique used to ensure this end result and it’s called alignment diagrams. I had the opportunity to read a very interesting article on the idea of alignment diagrams and how they serve a perpetual purpose among the growth of companies. , written by James Kalbach & Pul Kahn, shared their discoveries on the business process and provided advice to take full advantage of each customer touch point.
There are three major design avenues that play a component in the user/customer process, those being: Information Architecture (IA), User Experience Design (UXD), and Service Design (SD). Along with these visual techniques to map out the strategic thinking to guarantee customer satisfaction, the idea of alignment diagrams allows a business to visually map out the touch points they have with a customer throughout the business process. Alignment diagrams are created to allow for a structure to reveal the customer touch points and give constructive insights to where the design and business process needs to be altered in order to optimize the experience.
There are two very important components to a successful alignment diagram, the customer behavior and the business process. Common visualizations that are used in the UX industry include: site maps, overview diagrams, workflows, customer journeys and service blueprints. These visualizations are gathered from a number of data collection methods, including: ethnographic observation, user interviews and card sorting. All of these methods play a unique role in gathering insights towards a positive user experience.
“The business focuses on maximizing a target market’s profits and potential for growth. Customer-centered design focuses on maximizing the value of a product or service to the customer” writes Kalbach & Kahn. The idea is to be able to pinpoint the location in the business process where there is an overlap between the consumer and the company. This maximizes the value for both parties and allows for a hyper focus on that exact moment of intersection. Decreasing the noise between the customer interactions and keeping the experience seamless proves to not only be beneficial towards the customer but also increase value for the business. Once the business understands customer perception and loyalty they can begin to align their business goals. Kalbach & Kahn also note, “Mapping the steps in a production and consumption process is the best way to see opportunities for improvement.”
Several other design techniques come into play when mapping out the steps of the business process. Using a service blueprint to help structure the customer journey is the best way for a designer to visually see where the issues occur. Furthermore, mental model diagrams allow you to visualize where your business strategy aligns with the current user experience. Journey maps play a large role in the experience design, allowing to fully map out the beginning to end. This will include the first time a potential customer researches the company to the point where they decide to make the purchase. All these interactions reiterate the idea of ‘touch points’, providing an opportunity to reconstruct that interaction to a more positive one. The journey map defines the customer perception of the company and illustrates the amount of time invested in to their ‘relationship’ with a business. Each touch point may be different for each customer. Someone who tends to spend more time researching the internet prior to a purchase will need a more personalized experience tailored to their specific needs. Someone who skips the research portion and spends an extensive amount of time interacting directly with the company versus purely researching it.
By using these techniques, specifically alignment diagrams, benefits both sides of the transaction – the customer and the business. The PJIM article’s closing statement says, “These visualizations reveal value that can not only aid in the creation of products and services, but also improve changes in the business strategy as well.” The important takeaway is to consider all aspects of the relationship between a business and customer. By leveraging these diagrams, you can discover opportunities that increase your customer loyalty and benefit your business strategy.
by KLI | Apr 3, 2014 | Humor, Personas, usability, UX Fellows, Webinar
To set the stage for a recent webinar on behavioral personas, Key Lime Interactive called upon our colleagues at UX Fellows to share some stereotypical “personas” for each of their respective nations. The results were pretty creative and quite humorous!
Here’s what they had to say….
The UX Fellows is a global network for quality research. It is a circle of specialized user experience research agencies around the world that is dedicated to providing professional international user experience and usability testing.
