user

Interoperability, Usability, and the ONC 2015 Edition Certification

"Satisfaction and usability ratings for certified electronic health records (EHRs) have decreased since 2010 among clinicians across a range of indicators.”

This announcement was made 5 years ago the 2013 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Conference & Exhibition by Michael S. Barr, MD, MBA, FACP.

The myth of too many clicks

We have seen a number of recent blog posts and tweets complaining about EHRs having ‘too many clicks.’ (and a great video on youtube by ZDoggMD http://zdoggmd.com/ehr-state-of-mind/ '30 clicks for an Ambien?')

A number of people have proclaimed that reducing the number of clicks in an EHR as a method to improve EHR Usability. Multiple clicks are not a deterrent to usability and user satisfaction, in fact there are many occasions where having more clicks may actually improve usability.

The 5 U's of Usability and User-Centered Design:

  • User-centered Design
  • User-centered design is a process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of end users of a product, service or process are given the primary focus of attention at each stage of the design process.

    The main difference from other product design philosophies is that user-centered design tries to optimize the product around how users can, want, or need to use the product, rather than forcing the users to change their behavior to accommodate the product (aka. Engineering-Centric Design).

    See also: http://www.w3.org/WAI/redesign/ucd

  • Usability Testing
  • Who are your end users?

    Over the past several years we have had the opportunity to work with companies of various sizes as they plan and redesign their web presence. Some began using a CMS for the first time, while others were transitioning from either an open-source system (WP, Drupal, etc.) or some homegrown system to a more robust complete CMS solution (Adobe CQ5, Sitecore, Sharepoint, etc).

    We’ve worked with these organizations to help them better understand the mental models of their “End Users” so that together we could design a system that is effective, efficient and satisfying. But who are these “End Users?” One common thread that we’ve noticed is that a majority of these organizations seemed to forget about a number of “end users” by focusing exclusively on the experience of visitors to their sites and their customers.

    Don’t get us wrong, we think that it is vital to understand, and design towards the understanding of visitors and customers. We often create personas that help drive that design conversation.

    What we are saying is that most of the organizations that we’ve worked with never completely thought about all of the user touch-points they need to consider.

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