“We want it now and we want it easy”: Usability testing of an online health library for healthcare practitioners

Abstract

Introduction – The purpose of this study was to undertake website usability testing of the Saskatchewan Health Information Resources Partnership (SHIRP) online library website,. a digital library for healthcare providers working in the province of Saskatchewan, to determine whether the SHIRP website is intuitive for healthcare practitioners to use. Methods: Thirteen volunteers from four locations in the province participated in a usability test that included a portion devoted to the completion of tasks, as well as a series of semi-structured interview questions. Data were analyzed and themes were identified that were used to redesign the SHIRP website. Results – Nine out of the 13 main menu terms on the SHIRP website were problematic. A relatively low number of participants completed the assigned tasks on the first try. The SHIRP website was determined to be unwieldy and not completely intuitive. Conclusions – Asking front line healthcare providers what they need and want in an online library website should be the first step in creating or redesigning such a site. The time available to healthcare providers for doing library research is often limited, so the site needs to be simple, clean, and fast to use.

Establishing evaluation criteria for e-dictionaries

“…A factor related to navigation that can be evaluated is the time it takes to use the product. This can range from evaluating the number of steps (clicks) a user has to do to perform a task (Neilson and Wilson, 2011, p. 55) to measuring the time it takes to download items or the time it takes for the system to respond to the user (Calisir et al , 2010, p. 424). It should be easy for a user to navigate to the information in a dictionary.…”

“…searching and browsing) are often evaluated in usability studies (e.g. Hasan, Morris & Probets, 2012;Huang & Cappel, 2012;Neilson & Wilson, 2011;Calisir et al, 2010). In a dictionary, quick access is very important and the following can be considered when evaluating access, a basic search option, advanced search features, browsing options, filtering, viewing and manipulation of results or processing speed.…”

Point-of-Care Mobile Application to Guide Health Care Professionals in Conducting Substance Use Screening and Intervention: A Mixed-Methods User Experience Study

“…Despite the relatively small sample size, usability studies involving as few as 5 to 10 subjects can lead to identification of up to 80% of the surface level usability problems and be meaningful and comparable studies have used similar sample sizes. [29][30][31][32][33][34][35] Both the first and second author's institutional review boards approved the study. Participants received a meal of approximately $20.00 value for participating.…”

A Usability Evaluation of the Prototype Afrikaanse idiome-woordeboek

“…Hasan, Morris and Probets 2012), aesthetics and design problems (e.g. Hasan, Morris and Probets 2012;Neilson and Wilson 2011); search features (Hasan, Morris and Probets 2012); task completion (effectiveness) (e.g. Hamel 2012; Molich et al 2010;Weir, Anderson and Jack 2006); time taken to complete a task (efficiency) (e.g.…”