Category: Group Healthcare

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GROUP ASSIGNMENT 3A: FIRST ITERATIVE DESIGN

Introduction

Target Website: https://www.jeffdavishospital.org/

The Healthcare Group user tested the Jeff Davis Hospital (JDH) website, shown in Figure 1, through a comprehensive scenario of an individual seeking healthcare services for their family member. Violating major heuristics issues around consistency, standards, error prevention, efficiency and minimalist design, this site needed major redesign in content organization to merge its disjointed brand or legacy sites (Nielsen, 2020). In our group’s first redesign, we approached the site’s navigation by restructuring the site map, reimplementing search, and visualizing a native implementation of their Health Research Center. Wireframes were assembled in Figma Design and Figjam using Estefanía Montaña’s (n.d.) Easy-Peasy Wireframe Kit and colors matching JDH’s theme.  

Figure 1. Production Homepage (Jeff Davis Hospital, 2022) 

Proposed Re-design#1: Sitemap, Homepage, and Persistent Search 

  • Logo is home page link.
  • Sitemap is reorganized to focus on logical pathways to complete the user tasks. Sections like About Uss, Employees, and Policies were moved to the footer to deprioritize them. 
  • Note that we will perform card sorting internally or with the class in the second iteration to improve the navigation. 
  • Search bar is persistent and references Services, Health Research Articles, and External Links as separate sections in results 
  • Homepage – Static interface because users didn’t like moving images or menus  
  • Homepage – Partnership links to brands so that they are visible but separate from the Navigation terminology  
  • See Nielsen’s Menu Design Article by Whitenton in References as a citation use.

Figure 2. Sitemap 

Figure 3. Homepage 

Figure 4. Search Results Page 

Design Rationale

Sitemap

As a crucial part of our group’s iterative redesign of the JDH website, our focus immediately began with the landing page of the site to address numerous navigational and content organization issues that plagued our users during testing. As stated previously, the current website design violates numerous usability heuristics, and the landing page contains more than its fair share. Our group completely re-hauled the design through embracing a more minimalist aesthetic by eliminating unnecessary duplications of navigational options for content that presented no descriptive text and nonstandard language, while maintaining highly visible navigational links to the most used features of the website. We removed unnecessary imagery, the motion sickness-inducing video background, and outdated and unorganized content links.

Homepage

Additionally, our group made significant modifications to how the menu options and content are organized. We split the patient and visitor options, while combining physicians and employees. We moved some content and options to a separate footer option bar. Our group also removed the drop-down menu options and replaced them with subpages that allow for an improved navigational and information seeking experience by presenting options with supplemental descriptive text and images to avoid confusion over terminology or naming conventions by providing the user with the context they need to understand the option before they select it. By implementing a logical sitemap navigational architecture with meaningfully organized options and content, many of the design failures of the current website that we identified during testing can be corrected.

Persistent Search

Another major redesign element we introduced is the persistent search bar in the top right corner of every page on the website. Currently, a search bar is available on the site, but only if you scale the page just right; even then, selecting the magnifying glass icon only opens another search bar with another icon next to it. We have resolved this glaring issue by anchoring the search bar in a fixed location regardless of scale. What’s more, our group optimized the search results page by removing advertisements and externally promoted content and presented results in an organized precedence that will greatly improve the user experience of this feature

Proposed Re-design#2: Services Page

  • Reorganized into respective Special Services (involving more than one department) and Department Sections as their own separate tabs instead of dropdown submenus. This helps with User responsive design too. 
  •  Services named by their function rather than by brands like Swing-Bed and Harmony Center 

Figure 5. Services Webpage 

Design Rationale

The original design of the Jeff Davis Hospital site displays a conjunction of listed services under the “Our services” widget. The services listed under “Our services” displays all the care teams and departments offered by the Jeff Davis Hospital, the issue found with this interface design includes the inaccessibility of design for users. When users are attempting to select a service on the site the pop up of the widget does not withstand longer than a few seconds which presents a design that is not as simple or efficient to use for users which thus inhibits the goals of effective user design. To experiment with improving the JDH site’s current design we removed the service list from the main page drop down menu, footer options, and on the main page tiles. We replaced the service list drop down with a subpage directory for all services provided available with search bar, department organizational listing, and listed them alphabetically by service name. On the iterative design we are recommending, the services are listed with descriptive text and imagery to avoid confusion over terminology or naming conventions while also aiming to make finding Patient Transfer Services and Elderly Care Coordination simpler and more efficient. The information shown on each respective services page would be transferred to the respected services that they currently fall under on the JDH site as it is because the information listed helps in remaining informed on the services, but the formatting if the information presented would list the contact personnel first and at the end of the page. The information would be formatted in the middle of the page.

Proposed Re-design#3: Incorporated Health Research Center Knowledgebase

  • User Observation – Unappealing and Confusing FastHealth Site  
  • User Observation – Confusing Linkage to External Sites and FastNurse Branding 
  • Cite Cleveland Clinic as a derived example of the knowledgebase – See their Health Library 
  • Content stays on the website and stays consistent with the Jeff Davis Theme  
  • Adding external links to the bottom keeps the reputable resources from FastHealth

Figure 6. Health Research Center 

Figure 7. Health Research Article – Stroke 

Design Rationale

Health Research Center

As referenced in our group’s representative user tasks, FastHealth stroke-related information proved a difficult endeavor for our users to successfully navigate. Therefore, we are proposing incorporating FastHealth’s interface into the JDH ‘Health Research Center’ webpage like Figure 6. We conducted benchmark tests and found that Cleveland Clinic is suitable to emulate a portion of its health center knowledgebase interface for this re-designed webpage. Namely, sectioning the webpage’s ‘Search‘ and “Browse A-Z‘ components. However, our re-design will swap “Search” for “Categories” since the naming convention and its presented components in Figure 6 will make searching for relevant health information better structured. This re-design will include a search bar to address additional users’ preferences for information searches. These solutions make it easier for users to quickly retrieve relevant health information.

Health Research Article

Additionally, our representative user tests identified usability flaws with efficiently researching stroke-related information concerning FastHealth’s presentation of its links. To address these flaws, JDH health research articles (as shown in Figure 7) will be re-designed so that content can remain on the JDH website without disorienting users, staying consistent with the JDH minimalistic aesthetic. The articles will provide key sections that efficiently address our user’s health information needs. Relevant external links found on FastHealth regarding chosen health-related information will be included on this webpage as well. These proposed changes will reduce usability flaws related to the current site’s lack of consistency, confusing navigation, and abundance of information noise.

References 

Health Library. Cleveland Clinic. (n.d.). Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health

Jeff Davis Hospital. (2022). Jeff Davis Hospital. https://www.jeffdavishospital.org/ 

Jeff Davis Hospital/fasthealth corporation (Hazlehurst, Georgia – jeff davis county). (2022). Jeff Davis Hospital/FastHealth Corporation. http://www.jeffdavisfasthealth.com/ 

Montaña, E. (n.d.). Easy-Peasy Wireframe Kit. Figma. https://www.figma.com/community/file/989274600796773962 

Nielsen, J. (2020, November 15). 10 usability heuristics for user interface design. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/ 

Whitenton, K. (2015, November 29). Menu design: Checklist of 15 UX Guidelines to Help Users. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/menu-design/  

External Links 

Group Assignment 2 – User Scenarios and Representative Tasks 

Group Assignment 1 – Group Topic Selection 

Total Word Count:  1245

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Individual Assignment 3 – Representative User Test for Healthcare Website JDS

Website: https://www.jeffdavishospital.org/

Introduction

Jeff Davis Hospital (JDS) is a Hospital System located in Hazlehurst, GA that regionally serves patients affected by cardiovascular conditions. The Healthcare Group’s interest is to improve usability for users that leverage technology to coordinate their healthcare needs as this becomes a further need overtime with integrated networks and higher use of Healthcare Technology. In previous Heuristics Evaluations, the site presented violations around Consistency, Standards, error prevention, and minimalist design (Nielsen, 2020). The focus of user testing in the established representative tasks is to observe navigability on the site as a common problem of heuristics violations.

Figure 1. Homepage (Jeff davis hospital, 2022)

Persona and User Characteristics

In summary, the Healthcare Group opted for a User Persona representative of previously identified use cases of healthcare system websites. In summary, our persona is named Jennifer, an adult-child intending on transferring her father from a larger hospital to JDS to continue recovery and rehabilitation from a stroke closer to home. Jennifer is using the JDS website for the first time seeking transfer services and elderly-specific outpatient care coordination.

The user tester who volunteered was a 36-year old adult female (she/her) located in Florida. Similar to the persona, this user tester has experience with family members treated for post-operative cardiovascular care. Likewise, she resides regionally close to population areas serviced by JDS. The user tester was not prompted about prior personal or family healthcare history but disclosed the information during orientation with consent.

Testing Methods

Test Conduct and Materials are based on Rubin and Chiswell’s (2008) Methodologies and Guidelines, using “Think Aloud” Technique in observation with minimal tools. Concurrent Think Aloud (CTA) was primarily used with careful attention to apply impartiality with clarifying questions, resulting in qualitative user opinions and feedback of the website as user-generated data (Running a usability test, 2022). This method encourages the user to actively state how she is thinking through the task (Rubin & Chiswell, 2008).

Retrospective Scoping was used to collect quantitative data by form of a Likert Scale response with the following question and any feedback around it:

“On a scale of 1 to 5, how easy or difficult was it to complete this task? 1 being Extremely Easy, 5 being Extremely Difficult, and 3 being Neutral.”

In addition to the likert response, each task was timed to completion. Criterion for completion was to load the correct webpage according to the task and sitemap. Somewhat Difficult-4 or Extremely Difficult -5 scores indicate perceived effort in the task and time to completion provides a baseline to compare when re-designs are tested.

Materials used were the user’s iPad, a browsing application, a teleconferencing application, and a timer. Apple’s FaceTime was used to allow screen sharing of Google Chrome and screensharing virtually. Initially a desktop or laptop was requested, but an iPad was only available and was able to replicate the desktop website. Qualitative and quantitative measures were recorded using a Markdown Editor. Screenshots were collected from the active FaceTime Call or replicated from user actions. Audio or video recordings were not collected.

Orientation was conducted by first informing the user tester that a persona and three tasks would be provided and tested. She was encouraged to actively describe and comment as she completed each task. Measurements were disclosed and the user tester was reassured that results were solely for testing the website. Once orientation was complete, the persona was read as stated in Group Assignment 2 and each task was prompted to initiate testing.

Representative Tasks and Changes

  1. Find Information about symptoms and recommendations for Stroke as a healthcare topic on the Jeff Davis Hospital website.
  2. Find Patient Transfer Services for the hospital.
  3. Find information about Elderly Care Coordination.

Task 1 was expanded to include specific language about seeking information about stroke “symptoms and recommendations… as a healthcare topic on the Jeff Davis Hospital website” This change was recommended feedback by Dr. Paul Marty with Prototype Testing. Shorter task descriptions implied only general research on strokes, which more likely start with a search engine query. This change ensured tasks are logically linked and confined navigation to the tested website. All other tasks were unmodified.

Test Results and Analysis

TaskTime to CompleteLikert: Easiness-DifficultyFeedback Highlights
1 – Find Information About Stroke5 min 6 sec4Inconsistent Responsive Design, outdated site, too many external links, poor guides, and distrust with ad revenue
2 – Find Patient Transfer Services3 min 55 sec5“Swing-Bed” Non-standard terminology; lack of requirements and procedure information
3 – Find Elderly Care Coordination1 min 30 sec5Unclear differences between Rehab Options, Uncertainty being referred to another branded facility
Table 1. Summary Results and Highlights

Results from Task 1 – Find Information About Stroke

Completed in 5 minutes 6 seconds, Task 1 was perceived as 4 – Somewhat Difficult, with major issues around navigation and link redundancy. Previously unknown on the desktop browser, the user tester first failed the task by discovering a searchbar. With iPadOS 16.1 Stage Manger, the website opened as a mobile version, shown in Figure 2. Search results prompted advertisement hyperlinks followed by more accurate page results. However, the task was failed by the user not noticing the correct links. The user tester indicated distrust at this point with the perception that hospital sites should not collect ad revenue.

Figure 2. Search Bar in Mobile Homepage via iPadOS Stage Manager (Jeff davis hospital, 2022)

2 minutes into the task after restart, the user tester correctly identified the “Health Research Center” as the appropriate page through the Patient Services Menu and identified error prevention issues navigating disjointed links to the legacy FastHealth site. In addition to the links to “Stroke” and the FastHealth Image, the user tester discovered additional links under the Subsection “Online Health Search Engine” which further broke down more disparate links about stroke into the FastHealth Dictionary Link as a hosted copy of the Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary, General Health Research Link as another redirect, and “FastNurse” Link which displayed another hyperlink to launch an email client for contacting a nurse; all shown in Figure 3. As predicted, the user tester was not satisfied that the site had portions of information about stroke located in separate pages that encouraged navigation to sites away from JDS.

Figure 3. Excessive Links to FastHealth (Jeff davis hospital, 2022).

Results from Task 2 – Find Patient Transfer Services

Completed in 3 minutes 55 seconds, Task 2 was perceived as 5 – Extremely Difficult, with major issues around terminology of the “Swing-Bed Program” and lack of information on the patient transfer process. At first, the user tester failed the task by navigating to the “Patient Information” Submenu Link under the “Patients and Visitors Menu.” The only actionable information identified was a phone number to Admitting/Registration Services.

On second attempt, the user tester resized the window to trigger the search bar and searched for “Patient Transfer Services,” prompting the Swing-Bed Program Link as the only non-advertisement search result from SEO. After guiding the user tester back to the main site menu, the Swing-Bed Program Link was revealed to be the obvious option under the Our Services Submenu. The user-tester read the webpage and observed over-explanation of the “Swing Bed” term to define it as patient transfers. She also cited lacked information on what she needs to collect in paperwork to start her father’s transfer and the maximum distance allowed.

Results from Task 3 – Find Elderly Care Coordination

Completed in 1 minute 30 seconds, Task 3 was perceived as 5 – Extremely Difficult, with major issues around the terminology and poor descriptions of different services offered at JDS. The user tester initially failed the task by identifying “Respite Care” under “Our Services.” After redirecting her to the main menu and clarifying the term “care coordination” as a comprehensive set of services, she opened new tabs for “Hospice” and “Harmony Center” and cross compared the specified services – as well as comparing Respite Care. Time to complete in this task was short despite the difficulty due to this multi-tab navigation behavior. After reviewing these rehab services, the user tester concluded Harmony Center as the best option. However, she indicated that her decision was based on the lack of information from the other web pages. The user tester also indicated an impression that the Harmony Center brand was not part of JDS and thought this was another instance of the website directing her to other healthcare providers.

Design Recommendations

User Testing confirms that re-design of the site navigation will need redrafting of both old and new site content under a clearer menu to reduce error prevention and promote minimalist design. Selecting a new on-brand template and migrating the FastHealth content into its own knowledgebase will help reduce the disjointed interfaces and external links experienced. Then, by mitigating or removing the brands from the webpage content and centering a well-written introduction of services, the user will be able to verify quicker in taking action on their care. Alternatively, clustering services into single webpages may help if they can be ordered by increasing acuity. Considering focus on cardiovascular servicing and expertise, content and navigation can also be centered around this specialty.

As observed with difficulties of the user tester finding Elderly Care Coordination as Harmony Center and Patient Transfer Services as Swing Bed Program, renaming and reorganizing the main site menu terms and structure will improve comprehension and navigability. Renaming the two brand names to their obvious titles or standardizing under a medical terminology schema is preferable, especially to be in parity with competing hospitals. As shown in Figure 4, simply breaking apart the 15 links for “Our Services” and 13 links for “Patients & Visitors” can help alleviate overload and confusion. “Our Services” can potentially be separated as “Departments” and “Special Services” due to half of links being specialty specific and the other half palliative or rehabilitative services. “Patients & Visitors” can break into “Patients” and “Visitors & Policies” to separate personal health versus corporate information.

Figure 4. Large Clustered Submenus (Jeff davis hospital, 2022).

Finally, if user responsive design continues under the new template with persistent search, better search engine optimization matched to revamped navigation and removal of advertisements will not only promote consistency but regain overall stakeholder trust in the site content. Incorporating knowledge articles into search will reduce completion time from topic to information action. As shown by the user tester, search was always preferable to menu navigation. If search becomes more frequent, advertisement exposure will be more frequent but cause similar critical errors as using the antiquated FastHealth site. If re-branding and re-design is implemented, removing advertisements is a necessary step to adopting changes.

Total Word Count: 1600

References

Jeff davis hospital. (2022). Jeff Davis Hospital. https://www.jeffdavishospital.org/

Jeff Davis Hospital/fasthealth corporation (Hazlehurst, Georgia – jeff davis county). (2022). Jeff Davis Hospital/FastHealth Corporation. http://www.jeffdavisfasthealth.com/

Nielsen, J. (2020, November 15). 10 usability heuristics for user interface design. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/

Planning a usability test. (2022). Usability.gov. https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/planning-usability-testing.html

Rubin, J. & Chisnell, D. (2008). Handbook of usability testing: How to plan, design, and conduct effective tests (2nd edition). Wiley.

Running a usability test. (2022). Usability.gov. https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/planning-usability-testing.html

Backlinks

Group Assignment 2 – User Scenarios and Representative Tasks

Group Assignment 1 – Group Topic Selection

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Individual Assignment 3: Representative User Test

By Matthew Post

Subject Website: https://www.jeffdavishospital.org/

Jeff Davis Hospital, main landing page. Retrieved from: https://www.jeffdavishospital.org/

Website Description:

This website represents a small hospital located in Hazlehurst, Georgia, a small town about 100 miles west of Savannah. The website serves as its public-facing virtual hub for those seeking information relating to its services in patient care, employment opportunities, patient portal access, hospital and provider information, and health topic research resources. 

User Description:

The user is a 37-year-old woman with a graduate-level education and a profession in healthcare. She owns and operates a private clinical practice in the field of behavioral health, so she is very familiar with navigating various healthcare-related websites such as health insurance (payer) and government policy sites. She describes herself as “highly analytical, but easily frustrated” by poorly designed websites and portals, and “[doesn’t] understand why they make it so hard to use them”. She was concerned about the pacing of the user test, as she described preferring taking her to her time navigating a website and didn’t want to feel rushed into making mistakes or missing things.

Testing Methodology:

The user testing methods that I employed was Concurrent Think Aloud (CTA) and Retrospective Probing (RP). I chose a synthesis of these moderating techniques to maximize my data capture for testing by collecting in-the-moment thoughts from the tester, while also collecting information from their experience post-test with their complete attention and ability for more focused dialogue and feedback. During the testing, I had to ask the tester repeatedly to provide continuous feedback as they struggled to split their focus on the actions of their task and narrating their thoughts throughout as part of the CTA technique. Post-test RP allowed for a more deliberate description of their thoughts and actions during testing.

User Tasks:

I described the scenario as the following:

The user is an adult-child of an elderly father who has recently suffered a stroke at his home, outside the small town of Hazlehurst, GA. The father was initially seen at his local hospital, Jeff Davis Hospital, but was transferred to a larger, more comprehensive hospital in a city several hundred miles away to undergo surgery. The father has successfully completed the procedure and has asked the user to help him to be transferred back to Jeff Davis Hospital for recovery and rehabilitation, so that he can be closer to home and his elderly wife. The tester is using the Jeff Davis Hospital website for the first time to see if she can have her father transferred back to recover, learn more about stroke, and to see what elderly-specific outpatient care coordination is available after being discharged.

The user realizes that she knows very little about stroke. She listened her father’s care team describe his condition and treatment, but they used a lot of terms that she wasn’t familiar with and was too embarrassed to ask. She wants to learn more about stroke and its treatment, and since she is helping her father transfer back to Jeff Davis Hospital, she wants to know what information resources the website has available to research this topic. The first task is to leverage the website to learn more about stroke.

The user’s father was adamant about being transferred back to Jeff Davis Hospital. The staff at the hospital he is currently in said it was not uncommon for patients to be transferred to other hospitals, but they were not sure about this specific hospital. The next task is to use the website find out if Jeff Davis Hospital accepts patients for inpatient recovery and rehabilitation.

As part of the user’s concern for her father returning to the smaller hospital, she needs to investigate what resources are available to him after he goes home to further recover after his inpatient stay. The user wants to find out what outpatient services are available to him upon discharge to assist in managing his recovery and transition. The final task is for the tester to use the website to discover what elderly-specific care coordination programs are provided by the hospital.  

Testing Analysis:

  • The first task for the user was to use the website to research stroke. The user spent a few minutes orienting themself to the landing page and the available options. The user skimmed the top options by hovering over them one by one, revealing the drop-down menu of sub-option items for each option. The user spent a majority of their time on this page reading and re-reading through the “Our Services” menu options looking for a relevant selection for searching for medical conditions. The user noted the lack of a search bar field available on the landing page, as she indicated the desire to simply search for the keyword “stroke”.

The user eventually found the “Education” option under the “Patients and Visitors” main menu item. The user was initially confused with the addition of the left panel menu options, as it was a duplication to the already available and used top-center main menu sub-options; she scrolled through the list even though they were exactly the same as the options she already browsed to arrive on the “Education” page. She then scanned the limited content of the page and determined that this was not what she was searching for.  

The user then re-examined the options for some time before selecting the “Health Research Center” option. Upon loading the page, she immediately selected the image on the right side of the page representing the “FastHealth” search engine. After several minutes of laughter and questioning the authenticity of the displayed page, the user began to scan the available links presented in described “migraine-inducing color palette selection”. After several time-filling comments about the absurdity of the design of this page while continuing to scan, the user did locate the “stroke” option. The stroke page featured the same user described “terrible design” with “too many” options that provide no description of what they are. The user clicked through many of the available “Top Stroke Sites” options, finding a mixture of highly reputable medical research organizations and other healthcare sites that had “suspiciously generic” names that made the user question its authenticity or reputability. One source was from another country that recommended calling “999” if experiencing an emergency, which would not connect a caller in Hazlehurst, GA to the appropriate emergency response.

The “FastHealth” search engine informational page for stroke made available on the Jeff Davis Hospital website appears “crude, confusing, and frankly, assaulting to the visual senses” according to the user. The strange formatting of the content, too many options, the clashing visuals, and the lack of supplemental information describing the available links lends to an uncomfortable consumer experience, as the user feedback states.

  • The second task was for the user to investigate and determine whether Jeff Davis Hospital allows the transfer and in-patient stay of patients in recovery and rehabilitation after surgery. The user returned to the main landing page for the hospital website and began scanning the “Our Services” options. After spending some time going through the options, the user selected the “Respite Care” link; after reading the brief content on the following page, she determined that this was not the information she was seeking. The user then selected the “Surgical Services” option, read the page content, and asked if she had found the appropriate information; the user was minimally encouraged to continue searching. After another brief scan of the “Our Services” options, the user selected the “Swing Bed Program” option and found the information she was searching for.
  • The final task was to find elderly-specific outpatient care coordination for her father upon discharge from the hospital. The user again scanned the “Our Services” options, almost selected “Respite Care” again but opted for “Hospice Care”. Upon reading the words “terminally ill”, knowing this does not reflect her father’s status, returned to the “Our Services” options, scanned once again, and selected “Harmony Center”. Even upon reading the content of the page, the user was unsure if this was the desired information for the task – it was.

Design Recommendations:

  • Addition of a search bar on all website pages. With the addition of a functional search bar, users can simply search by keywords to find the website content they are searching for.
  • The addition of brief, descriptive, supplementary text to display, or appear after hovering, under each menu option selection. Users should have an idea of what the following page selection content provides without having to visit that page, especially if there are medical or non-standard language terms being used.
  • Remove the redundant display of sub-category options on the left panel; the duplicate display of these options only crowds the screen unnecessarily and confuses the user as they have already used the top center main option selection to reach a page that displays it.
  • Remove the image-link of the “FastHealth” search engine landing page from the “Healthcare Research Center” page. Present the available categories in text, in alphabetical order on the page.
  • Completely re-design the “FastHealth” search engine with a more modern, aesthetically appropriate design. Introduce improved Jeff Davis Hospital branding. Eliminate or better organize as many options as possible (i.e., consolidated options or sub-pages) to present a more streamlined and minimalist design. When presenting links to external resources, provide brief detail text describing the resource and its authority on the subject matter. If this is not possible, remove the “Health Research Center” page completely.
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Individual Assignment 3: Representative User Test

Target Website

https://www.jeffdavishospital.org/

The Jeff Davis Hospital (JDH) website serves communities located within Hazlehurst, GA. Our primary concern is to observe the website’s usability through representative user testing.

Representative User

The target user responsible for carrying out the subsequent usability tasks for certain sections of the JDH website is a 22-year-old pre-medical student attending Florida State University (FSU). They are familiar with various information systems, particularly regarding healthcare websites considering their academic background. Their objective will be to simulate the role of a family member seeking healthcare services concerning the welfare of their grandparent, namely having a stroke.

Testing Method

Empirical research consisting of forty participants conducted by Alhadreti demonstrated that the Think Aloud (TA) method is highly suitable for usability testing (Alhadreti, 2020). They show that TA requires the involvement of one user, which reduces cost constraints and other project complexities, while effectively yielding major usability problems concerning the website.

However, the TA method is not without certain limitations. Computer science and information researchers Fan et al. argue that TA tests require a heavy time commitment to analyzing users’ voicings (Fan et al, 2020). Interestingly, their research seeks to automate TA sessions through machine learning models. Therefore, while cost-effective, TA tests should be limited to as few participants as possible to benefit from such testing without heavy time commitments. In this representative user test, one individual for evaluating the usability of JDH’s website will suffice.

Representative User Tasks

Assigned user tasks in this representative user test of the JDH website include:

Representative TaskDescription
Locate General Information About Strokes  Reviews information to make better decisions for the welfare of those impacted by such health issues. Tests website information scent, relevance, and reliability.
Locate Patient Transfer Services  When the patient is transitioning from post-surgery to physical rehabilitation. Such services are imperative to the safety and well-being of the patient, which aids in their recovery. Tests matching real-world vocabulary to the system.
Find Information About Elderly Care CoordinationFinding elderly care services offered by the JDH outpatient clinic. Tests website consistency and standards regarding its naming conventions and brevity.

Usability Analysis of Tasks

Locate General Information About Strokes

Using the TA method, the user accessed JDH’s website using their laptop on a Windows 10 OS. They made multiple remarks about the cleanliness and aesthetics of the homepage. When assigned the first task of locating general stroke-related information, they started with the section “Our Services” in the navigation panel. They reasoned that of the healthcare services that JDH provided, managing strokes should be one. With each link selected, the user would quickly scan the webpages using ‘CTRL+F’ with “Stroke” as the search criteria. However, they could not locate the information. Of those links, they selected “Emergency” after considering that a person experiencing a stroke would most likely look at this section. But the emergency services provided were not granular.

They then reasoned that their vocabulary regarding strokes needed to match a more formal, medical term. But a quick Google search did not yield relevant information about navigating JDH’s website. This search behavior continued over to the “Patients and Visitors” section which yielded similar dead ends that the user provided their reasoning for initially clicking. Of particular interest, the subsection “Education” did not provide the user with any information related to learning about strokes. They mentioned expecting to see such information on this webpage but were disappointed.

After a few more minutes of continuing navigation through trial and error, the user selected the subsection “Health Research Center” to finally locate stroke-related information. They expressed frustration that such information would exist in on this webpage but not in the “Education” section. They also thought the FastHealth graphic was “ugly” and intentionally did not click on the picture for that reason. They added that the graphic did not fit the rest of the web page’s aesthetic presentation.

Selecting the “Stroke” link directed the user to another section of the JDH website called FastHealth. The user mentioned that if they had accessed this website outside of JDH, they would have been highly skeptical of FastHealth because of its antiquated interface. They pointed out that the orientation of the links was arranged in alphabetical order. This frustrated the user because they could not tell which information was most important based on how they navigate webpages in general. They explained that they will typically click on the first link directly under a section on the navigation panel thinking that the first link is the most relevant to that section. FastHealth’s approach to the mere organization of links based on lettering did not sufficiently consider their users’ needs. This threw the user off to good information scent (since it was lacking) because they ended up clicking on all the links to discover that most of them don’t adequately define what a stroke is but explain procedures for managing a stroke. Additionally, the user needed stroke-related links that were relevant and reliable and presented in chronological order rather than alphabetical.

Locate Patient Transfer Services

For the second representative user task, the user’s behavior with navigating the JDH website became more apparent. For this task, they selected the section “Patients and Visitors” stating that such services would most likely reside here. The user continued by selecting the “Patient Portal” subsection expecting to find information related to the task simply because it was the first link immediately under the section header. The webpage did not provide them with relevant information. They then reverted to the main section, scanning the remaining links to no avail.

At some point, the user realized that patient transfer services could also be found under the “Our Services” section and hovered over the subsection links. They mentioned various links that could house such information but directed their attention to the ‘Swing Bed Program”. This wasn’t too surprising considering their background with healthcare websites. However, they couldn’t make sense of the selected webpage. It took them a few minutes in attempting to discover if JDH did offer such services. There were no clear indicators on the webpage that catered to patient transfers. The reason for the user’s confused behavior most likely stems from JDH’s vocabulary not matching real-world situations. The user was looking for transfer services, which the webpage offered, but was inundated with additional services concerning the exhaustiveness of their ‘Swing Bed’ program.

Find Information About Elderly Care Coordination

The final representative task involved the user locating a JDH outpatient clinic related to elderly care. The user began this task with said consistent behaviors in navigating the JDH website links. They selected the “Our Services” section, also stating that the first link, “Behavioral Health Unit” would be the “most relevant”. This reasoning led them across several various links as they kept running into irrelevant information. They voiced their confusion about how difficult it was to find the JDH outpatient clinic related to elderly care.

This confusion was further corroborated by their thinking that the JDH outpatient clinic was the Family Medical Group (FMG). This confusion is understandable considering the FMG offered “quality care for a broad range of illnesses” that included DOT physicals. This was an easy mistake to make since FMG was using ambiguous language in defining their “quality care”. The user voiced this concern by asking questions, “What are wellness visits?” or “Patient education?” However, the user determined that the JDH outpatient clinic for elderly care was not to be found at FMG.

After realizing that FMG wasn’t suitable for accomplishing this task, they simply selected the link below FMG, “Harmony Center”. It took them about a minute to accomplish this task since the vocabulary on this webpage matched the task requirements for receiving elderly care from a JDH outpatient clinic. They voiced several terms that corroborated their reasoning that the Harmony Center was the right webpage for such services. Such terms included, “loved one”, “seniors”, and “declining physical ability”. However, the time it took for the user to accomplish this task was unacceptable due to the JDH’s website’s naming conventions from the “Our Services” section. The Harmony Center doesn’t provide any context as to what that webpage will provide. Additionally, for Family Medical Group to offer DOT physicals is also misleading for services whose clinic name concerns family care. The user’s expressed frustration is noted.

Design Recommendations

Chronologically oriented stroke-related links

Currently, FastHealth alphabetically organizes its educational links for all its healthcare topics. While this satisfies some form of organization it is not considering the audience that would utilize this information. Based on the findings of the TA session, the user was frustrated with not knowing which stroke-related link was most relevant to the scenario described to them. Their understanding of how to research strokes was chronologically oriented to the task requirement. That is, they wanted information about the different stages of a stroke with the respective medical care administered at each stage. By considering the audience, that is, users most likely to navigate this website, chronologically orienting healthcare links will increase website information scent, relevancy, and reliability thereby improving its usability.

Re-design the FastHealth user interface

The user noted their dislike of FastHealth’s antiquated interface. While it didn’t prevent them from navigating the website, it did invoke feelings of distrust for satisfying their information needs. The user reasoned that if it weren’t for accessing FastHealth from the JDH website, they would not have taken it seriously. Based on these findings, re-designing the FastHealth user interface to match the JDH website interface will promote a better experience for users and enhance its usability.

Match real-world vocabulary to the system

The user experienced frustration when seeking patient transfer services because of the terminologies utilized by JDH’s website. Namely, the “Swing Bed Program” webpage. While that term might have made sense to some, it was clear that the term was not universally understood. Thus, when matching real-world vocabulary to JDH’s “Swing Bed Program” webpage, its audience must be considered. The TA session proved this reality when the user struggled with understanding what “Swing Bed” meant even with their pre-medical background. Therefore, one solution is to consider what their audience would most likely understand and search for. That is, instead of “swing bed”, use plain vocabulary like, “patient transfer services”. This solution demonstrates empathy for its users that speaks their natural language since these words are familiar to them (Nielsen, 2020).

Re-design contextual navigation system using card-sorting

For all tasks, the user found it difficult to track down task requirements through JDH’s website navigation system. This hurt the website’s usability since the user could not reconcile their understanding of patient transfer services or seeking outpatient elderly care with system terminology like “Swing Bed” or “Harmony House”. The user voiced several times about clicking on links that seemed “right” but were not at all relevant to their representative tasks. One solution is to conduct a card-sorting exercise where users organize topics into categories that make sense to them, which can help improve the JDH website contextual navigation system’s logical ordering to better reflect website usability.

Citations

Alhadreti, O. (2020). Comparing Two Methods Of Usability Testing In Saudi Arabia: Concurrent Think-Aloud Vs. Co-Discovery. International Journal Of Human-Computer Interaction, Ahead-Of-Print(Ahead-Of-Print), 1–13. Https://Doi.Org/10.1080/10447318.2020.1809152

Fan, Li, Y., & Truong, K. (2020). Automatic Detection Of Usability Problem Encounters In Think-Aloud Sessions. ACM Transactions On Interactive Intelligent Systems, 10(2), 1–24. Https://Doi.Org/10.1145/3385732

Nielsen, J. (2020, November 15). 10 usability heuristics for user interface design. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/

WORD COUNT: 1905

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Group Assignment 2: Healthcare – User Scenarios and Representative Tasks

Website: https://www.jeffdavishospital.org/

Introduction

The Healthcare Group is testing and re-designing the Jeff Davis Hospital (JDH) website, shown in Figure 1, JDH is a hospital system located in Hazlehurst, GA that serves patients and families affected by cardiovascular accidents such as strokes. Our interest is to observe and accommodate users who leverage technology to find more information and actions about their personal or family’s healthcare needs. Within healthcare alone technology can be frustrating but especially trying to navigate care for a loved one affected by a stroke which delays elderly care. This will be further exasperated when the demand for care exceeds provider capacity. However, digital strategies will promote efficiency and better outcomes (Haddad et al., 2022). Contrasting widely known healthcare systems like Mayo Clinic or Cleveland Clinic, Jeff Davis Hospital services a smaller population regionally and accentuates most heuristics issues previously violated around consistency, standards, error prevention, efficiency, and minimalist design (Nielsen, 2020).

Figure 1. Homepage (Jeff davis hospital, 2022)

In reviewing previous heuristics evaluations, the JDH site mainly displays inconsistency and rigidity by using uncommon semantics and disjointed site navigation. Notably, as shown in Figure 2, numerous medical knowledge articles directing users to learn about symptoms or conditions link externally to its antiquated Fast Health site with no backward navigation. Likewise, observing SEO results, many remnants of the old site designs remain in the top 10 results. This disjointed navigation will be reflected in our representative tasks while observing usability flaws identified by our target user group.

Figure 2. Legacy Page (Jeff Davis Hospital/Fast Health corporation (Hazlehurst, Georgia – Jeff Davis County, 2022)

User Persona and Scenario

Jennifer is a 53-year-old resident of St. Augustine, FL, and is the adult-child of an 82-year-old father that has recently suffered a stroke. Jennifer’s father lives outside of a rural, small town in Georgia called Hazelhurst, however, he was transferred from his local hospital, Jeff Davis Hospital, to a larger hospital for emergency surgery in Jacksonville, FL.

Jennifer’s father has completed his surgery and is recovering well; he has requested to be transferred back to his local hospital to complete recovery and rehabilitation so that he can be closer to his elderly wife and home.

Jennifer is using the Jeff Davis Hospital website for the first time to see if she can have her father transferred back to recover, learn more about stroke, and see what elderly-specific outpatient care coordination is available after being discharged.

Representative Tasks

1. Finding Information About Strokes on the Site

Our target user group is most interested in retrieving health-related information from Jeff Davis’s Fast Health interface. Namely, researching elderly strokes considering the high likelihood of such an event (Brain basics: Preventing stroke, n.d.). Our target users will review this information to make better decisions for the welfare of those impacted by such health issues.

This representative task of our target user group seeks to establish Fast Health’s trustworthiness and usability for its target audience. Namely, we are interested in testing how well Fast Health can satisfy the target user’s needs based on our given scenario for reviewing health information related to strokes. Additionally, we seek to document usability discrepancies identified while conducting Nielsen’s (2020) heuristics evaluations.

2. Find Patient Transfer Services for the Hospital

Patient transfer services are often needed for the elderly for several reasons. Namely, when the patient is transitioning from post-surgery to physical rehabilitation. Such services are imperative to the safety and well-being of the patient, which aids in their recovery. Our target user group will seek information related to this task through Jeff Davis’s website.

We are most interested in testing the website’s usability in carrying out this task. Specifically, matching real-world vocabulary to the system. That is, considering if the website has strong information scent for locating such services based on the user’s understanding.

3. Find Information About Elderly Care Coordination

Outpatient services provided to the elderly serve as a strong pillar for any medical facility. Our target user group will search for such services on the Jeff Davis website to help the elderly in their care. This task addresses similar usability issues identified in locating patient transfer services. Additionally, we are interested in testing usability flaws regarding the context and content provided by this section of the website. Namely, we are testing website consistency and standards regarding its naming conventions and brevity.

Conclusion

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found that within the United States (U.S) every forty seconds someone has a stroke while more than 795,000 people (about half the population of Idaho) in the U.S experience a stroke annually (CDC, 2022). With the high probability of stroke that affects people in the U.S every year, having a plan of action and care plan for loved ones affected by stroke is imperative thus why effective navigation and usability of hospital sites like the JDH website is needed. In our presented usability analysis scenario is an 82-year-old stroke victim who received care in Jacksonville. Jennifer is attempting to access information on transferring her father from Jacksonville, FL to Hazelhurst, GA where JDH is located so that he may be closer to his elderly wife and home. The representative tasks include three steps which are as follows; Find information about strokes on the JDH website, Find Patient Transfer Services for the Hospital, and Find Information About Elderly Care Coordination. With these representative tasks, Jennifer could use the information found to make informed decisions to successfully transfer her father from Jacksonville, FL to Jeff Davis Hospital.

Total Word Count: 846

References

Brain basics: Preventing stroke. (n.d.). National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/public-education/brain-basics/brain-basics-preventing-stroke 

Haddad, L.M., Annamaraju, P., & Toney-Butler, T.J. (2022). Nursing Shortage. StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK493175/  

Jeff davis hospital. (2022). Jeff Davis Hospital. https://www.jeffdavishospital.org/

Jeff Davis Hospital/fasthealth corporation (Hazlehurst, Georgia – jeff davis county). (2022). Jeff Davis Hospital/FastHealth Corporation. http://www.jeffdavisfasthealth.com/

Nielsen, J. (2020, November 15). 10 usability heuristics for user interface design. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/

Stroke facts. (2022, April 5). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/stroke/facts.htm

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Group Assignment 1 – Healthcare

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Individual Assignment 2 – Healthcare and my.clevelandclinic.org

Website

The website selected for this Heuristics Evaluation intended for the Healthcare Group is the Cleveland Clinic Healthcare System at https://my.clevelandclinic.org/. The website represents a medium-to-large services and resource oriented healthcare organization situated nationally with locations primarily in Ohio and Florida. The site serves as an integrated public-facing portal for individuals seeking health form a trusted source – learning further about Cleveland Clinic’s services, access to patient-specific info, and navigating conceptual medical or pharmaceutical info.

Figure 1. Cleveland Clinic Homepage (Cleveland Clinic, 2020)

User Scenario

Prefaced in our group interest, our user seeks a central destination to fulfill information needs in terms of their healthcare, fulfillment either to gain more knowledge or to further take action with a medical professional. With this in mind, the ideal scenario is to connect all those needs with a user that is a new patient seeking to alleviate a medical condition by discovering more about the condition itself, related symptoms, and concluding the search by making an appointment with a healthcare provider.

Defining the scenario with helpful attributes, our situated user seeks to find more about the treatment solutions for his or her chest pain. With Heart Disease as the highest in mortality and common care, it is most appropriate symptom to simulate (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2022). Our user has already decided to seek an appointment with a medical professional, understanding the intent of visiting Cleveland Clinic as a point of care in addition to a knowledge center as intuitively defined by the organization’s name.

In emulating this scenario, the following steps were accomplished with the current UI:

  1. Select “Looking for information about diseases and treatments?” in body.
  2. Search “Chest Pain” in the search box and select the first result.
  3. Select “Appointments & Locations” as the orange primary button.

Flaws and Heuristics Analysis

In this analysis, Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics were used as the most universally applicable in testing Cleveland Clinic’s site usability with the specified scenario. With each flaw, inadequate heuristics were identified for improvements. Overall, the flaws identified center around Cleveland Clinic’s lack of contextualizing user needs upon entering the website.

The first flaw, in site navigation, is the lack of context for our user to identify where they can navigate to cardiology specific information. On the homepage in Figure 1, the site only provides two links to enter the “Health Library” to make a search for conditions and symptoms or to select the link stating “Looking for information about diseases and treatments?” in the middle of the page. In terms of heuristics, this issue primarily violates Flexibility and Efficiency of Use, where the site needs to tailor to expert users but also quickly prompt accelerative actions for new users (Nielsen, 2020). The site accomplishes this well with COVID-19 and monkeypox specific links, but fails to address even considering the more common CDC Diseases. Likewise, Recognition Rather Than Recall is lacking for the same reasons and Help and Documentation is initially lacking with

The second flaw, back to navigation, is the over-redundancy of the generic links. While this can aid on other heuristics, it is against Aesthetic and Minimalist Design with more distracting text. Use of light text in primary headers and bold texts in secondary links clash in aiding where to select on conditions or seeking a medical professional. Non-actionable text hidden in headers like “100 Years of Cleveland Clinic” are also present. Dual use of the same links for “Find a Doctor,” “Locations & Directions,” and “Appointments” add to the confusion, only separated by a large middle picture heading. All three links eventually conclude with the ability to make an appointment, but add extraneous details to specialize more on the action steps rather than the care needs.

When selecting “Health Library” the user ideally would enter “chest pain” into the search box centrally located as seen in Figure 2, which delivers an article that has the ideal step highlighted with an orange button to make an appointment, superseded by the 800-number. At this concluding task, this setup, especially when considering “chest pain,” fails the heuristic of Match between System and Real World with the context of the site content (Nielsen, 2020). The knowledge article mentions in paragraph multiple times to reach a medical professional immediately for this symptom due to high concerns of more serious heart disease. However, the buttons remain static in all knowledge articles. With multiple pathways, all steps encourage calling the main number even though there are other options that are buried in the body.

Concluding the scenario, as shown in Figure 3, the user is given an extensive standard operating procedure to make an appointment to visit the Main Ohio Campus, with repetitive calling options and buried action links. This extensive text once again violates Aesthetic and Minimalist Design but also violates Error Prevention and Diagnosis to Recover from Errors (Nielsen, 2020). By expanding contact options less clearly and branching multiple hyperlinks for the purpose of making an appointment, the site risks making the user more lost and reverting back and forward between pages.

Figure 2. Chest Pain Result in Health Library Search (Cleveland Clinic, 2022).
Figure 3. SOP to Make an Appointment (Cleveland Clinic, 2022).

Design Recommendations

To address the homepage, the simplest step is to reduce redundancy of main navigation links in the header to aid in Aesthetic and Minimalist Design. By removing duplicated links, making the remaining ones more bold or accented, and reducing the length of the picture heading, the site is more visible to body content below the heading.

In place of the secondary redundant links, using icons and titles for different specialty areas such as “Heart,” “Cancer,” “Respiratory” and “Infections” can contextualize the user’s search in the Health Library for more information about their condition. By using more generic terms for the specialties, the user understands the topics better to drill down.

When presented the knowledge article for “Chest Pain” like in Figure 2, there should be more more call to action buttons with the common one to “Call to Make an Appointment.” Primarily for this article, flagging certain ones as high risk can have a button to “Call 911 for Emergency” in red to highlight if the user is experiencing the symptom. These can hyperlink to a phone call in-browser or on the mobile device. More importantly, the semantics of the buttons apply intent more in line with real world and the system.

Lastly, to avoid errors and provide clarity with less clutter with the end page shown in Figure 3, content can be reduced with the inclusion of action buttons mentioned previously and simplifying the step-by-step article only about what the user expects after they make the appointment. Selecting the action button can also prompt the user with a new load page saying “thank you for reaching out” and then provide the guide below. This facilitates feedback and lets the user diagnose what occurred when they placed the call.

Future Considerations and Conclusion

Architecturally, it is apparent that the initial design elements of Cleveland Clinic’s site are mainly to alleviate a less sophisticated appointment management platform. The requirement to be a MyChart account holder as a current patient or use a 1-2 day delayed web form are poor substitutes compared to a direct phone number. With the careful design of a linear oriented new patient appointment system on-site, many of the flaws listed can be alleviated. Likewise, approaching linearly aids in successful steps in the scenario by curating actionable steps from condition to appointment scheduling.

Word Count: 1,198

References

Access anytime anywhere. Cleveland Clinic. (2022). Retrieved September 26, 2022, from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022, September 6). FASTSTATS – leading causes of death. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm

Nielsen, J. (2020, November 15). 10 usability heuristics for user interface design. Nielsen Norman Group. Retrieved September 19, 2022, from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/

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Group Assignment 1 – Healthcare

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Matthew Post

Individual Assignment #2: : HEURISTIC EVALUATION

Website Selection

South Georgia Medical Center – https://www.sgmc.org/

I have selected the South Georgia Medical Center (SGMC) website for the assignment 2 heuristic evaluation. This website represents a small but surprisingly comprehensive medical center and hospital located in Valdosta, Georgia. The website serves as it’s public-facing virtual destination for those seeking information relating to its services in patient care, employment opportunities, patient portal access, its medical residency program, public health and hospital census data, and community events.

Retrieved from: https://www.sgmc.org/

Scenario Description

The scenario that I chose to center my heuristic evaluation on is that of an individual who is attempting to discover more information about South Georgia Medical Center’s palliative care program and what services the program provides. Palliative care is defined by the U.S. National Institute on Aging as “specialized medical care for people living with a serious illness…meant to enhance a person’s current care by focusing on quality of life for them and their family,” (NIA, 2021). Palliative care is different than hospice care, as hospice care does not contain curative treatment as part of its care planning and is designed for patients that will be terminal in the short term, typically within six months (NIA, 2021). I approached the SGMC site evaluation somewhat unconventionally based on the framework described by in Nielsen, as I was a single individual conducting the evaluation acting as both the evaluator and the observer with no additional participating evaluators to aggregate findings with (Nielsen, 1995). In the scope of these roles, I am evaluating my use of this website as a first-time user for this specific scenario without the possibility of guardrails or hints provided by an observer by requesting guidance – I am on my own as an evaluator.

Usability Flaws

The first usability flaw discovered is that the landing page is not branded with the full name of the organization, South Georgia Medical Center, and instead only displays the organizational acronym, SGMC. This lack of brand awareness connecting the more generally recognizable full name with the acronym violates the usability heuristic #2 match between system and the real world, as the website’s current state assumes that the user is familiar with identifying this organization by its acronym, which they may not. Due to this lack of identification, it is possible that an individual in the evaluation scenario could be confused about whether they have even arrived at the correct website after searching for a “South Georgia hospital” and being presented with two very similarly named organizations “Southeast Georgia Health System (SGHS.org)” and “South Georgia Medical Center (SGMC.org)”, two different health systems that are over 120 miles away from one another. When an individual visits the physical location of a South Georgia Medical Center campus or building, the full name is displayed outside (https://www.sgmc.org/about-south-georgia-medical-center/our-mission-vision-and-values/), and similarly, when an individual calls the main telephone line for SGMC, it identifies itself through its full name not an acronym. The website failing to follow real-world conventions by clearly identifying itself on its landing page violates usability heuristic #2 match between system and the real world.  

The second usability flaw that was encountered during the evaluation was in the medical service listing page while attempting to locate information on palliative care. The list of services contains “palliative care” in two different locations and the information that each links to is different, with no mechanism on the service list page or the following linked pages to explain the difference and route to the other. This flaw represents a violation of usability heuristic #4 consistency and standards and #7 flexibility and efficiency of use. The first link displays “Hospice/Palliative Care” and links to an external website for an organization called “Hospice of South Georgia” with no explanation of its affiliation to SGMC. The second “Palliative Care” listing in the services links to a SGMC page that very briefly describes the program, defines the difference between hospice and palliative care, and requests personal contact information to receive more detail about the program. The service list having two listings for palliative care violates usability heuristic #4 consistency and standards because it requires the user to click on both links to ascertain what the difference between the two are and even then, it is not readily apparent. This violation causes unnecessary confusion for the user and negatively impacts the user experience in a context that is likely serious and emotional. Furthermore, this design also does not allow the user to be routed from the palliative care page to the hospice care site, despite the effort made to make the user understand the difference. By not providing a link from the palliative care page to the hospice care site and vice versa, the design violates usability heuristic # 7 flexibility and efficiency as it requires the user to navigate between both links from the service list inefficiently despite acknowledging a confusing semantic difference.

Retrieved from: https://www.sgmc.org/our-services/  

Recommendations

The first design recommendation that I propose is to include a prominent display of “South Georgia Medical Center” on its landing page front and center. Additionally, I recommend including the full name under the website home icon located on the top left of the website throughout. Through the inclusion of these recommendation design optimizations, users can enjoy a higher level of brand awareness and thus less confusion regarding the website they are viewing while seeking information from this specific healthcare system.

The second proposed design recommendation is to remove the “Palliative Care” from the “Hospice/Palliative Care” link on the service list; the inclusion of it creates unnecessary confusion in the user experience. I also recommend creating a section on the remaining “Palliative Care” linked page that describes this available service through the affiliation with Hospice of South Georgia with a link to that website’s palliative care page in addition to the palliative care service option that SGMC provides independently. Additionally, on the SGMC palliative care page I recommend including a link to Hospice of South Georgia’s website in the section defining the difference between palliative care and hospice for navigational convenience.  

Retrieved from: https://www.sgmc.org/our-services/palliative-care/

References:

Nielsen, J. (1995). How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation. http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-to-conduct-a-heuristic-evaluation/

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging. (2021). What are palliative and hospice care? Retrieved September 23, 2021, from https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/what-are-palliative-care-and-hospice-care#palliative

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Individual Assignment 2

Target Website

https://www.gmha.org/

Guam Memorial Hospital Authority (GMHA) is the largest medical facility that serves the general population of Guam and the surrounding Micronesian islands.

Scenario – Acquire contact information about a GMHA Facility

In this analysis of the GMHA’s website usability, the most likely scenario involves a stakeholder (in this case, the user) searching for contact information about services offered at a GMHA facility. Such services can include radiological, urgent care, laboratory, physical therapy, and so forth. This scenario also considers how a user might approach navigating GMHA to reach their intended information through the various healthcare providers regarding said services.

Heuristic violations based on the scenario

In consideration of the suggested scenario, utilizing Jakob Nielson’s 10 usability heuristics is most applicable in testing GMHA’s website usability. The scenario aids in this heuristic evaluation by detailing the steps that a user would likely perform based on their information needs. For instance, a user’s health concerns would prompt them to seek out medical services from the largest healthcare facility in Guam. The first step a user would take is to browse GMHA’s website seeking relevant contact information regarding their health concerns with a specific medical facility at GMHA. On the homepage, they would seek any icons, links, or directories hinting at where they could locate such information. This approach should provide them with the relevant information from GMHA that would allow them to contact the appropriate healthcare facility. However, these steps are difficult to accomplish based on the identified usability flaws. Following is a brief overview of those usability flaws with their associated heuristic violation based on the said scenario:

#LocationUsability Flaw ExplanationHeuristic Violated
1HomepageA cluttered homepage disorients the user. Phone directory poorly placed#8: Aesthetic and minimalist design
2Areas of CareAll links lead to the same location confusing the user#1: Visibility of system status
3Areas of CareComplicated menu design hinders the user#8: Aesthetic and minimalist design
4Areas of CareNo contact information for any medical facility shows little concern for the user#2: Match between system and the real world
5Find a ProviderNo clear feedback that a provider could not be found. No user recovery#1: Visibility of system status
#9: Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors

1. Homepage: Cluttered information

Based on the selected scenario, a user would be most interested in locating contact information for a GMHA medical facility. However, this information is difficult to find on the homepage. GMHA hosts a multitude of information on its homepage that can quickly disorient the representative user. Namely, there are too many links and action commands that populate the user’s screen making it needlessly difficult to locate relevant information to continue. What’s more, if the user scrolls down the page they could find the contact information but it’s too easy to skip over the link since it’s objectively dull. In its current state, GMHA’s homepage provides low information utility thereby reducing its website usability and information scent. These usability flaws directly violate Nielsen’s eighth heuristic for aesthetic and minimalist design.

2. Areas of Care: Burdensome Drop-Down Menu

Following the next logical step in the scenario, the user scans the homepage looking for whatever link most likely directs them to a specific medical department. They click on ‘Areas of Care’ and a drop-down menu displays links to various GMHA healthcare facilities. This menu makes it difficult for the user to locate the appropriate GMHA healthcare facility. The most obvious way is to click on the right-facing angle bracket to scroll for additional medical areas. However, if the user needed to locate the ‘Radiology’ department, it would take much longer because of clicking multiple times with the current alphabetized menu design.

This usability flaw directly violates Nielson’s eighth heuristic on aesthetics and minimalist design. The menu forces the user to navigate through irrelevant information until they can find what they wanted initially. Namely, the interface has too many unnecessary elements that hinder users from quickly finding relevant information thereby increasing its ‘noise’.

3. Areas of Care: Poor System Status Visibility

Continuing the scenario, the user will have selected the desired healthcare department and be directed to another webpage. The user expects to find information about that specific department. However, the webpage does not direct the user to the right department. Rather, the user is directed to all the GMHA medical departments along with brief descriptions and pictures of each. Given this unfortunate usability flaw, the user that painstakingly clicked through multiple departments to select ‘Radiology’ could have clicked on ‘Care Units & CIF’ and been directed to the same webpage. Added to that frustration, the user would at this point realize that they didn’t need to select the right department because it was all located on the same webpage, to begin with. This feature was only intended to search for the desired facility on this webpage to make it ‘easier’ for the user to locate it sooner. However, pictures in the drop-down menu behave inconsistently which may or may not indicate system failure. For instance, while clicking ‘Pediatrics’, the system will function as intended. Yet, other links like ‘Radiology’ will break the system which resorts back to the ‘Areas of Care’ page confusing the user as to what happened. Therefore, this usability flaw violates Nielsen’s heuristics of system visibility since it erodes the user’s trust because of little feedback as to what the system is doing.

4. Areas of Care: Medical Facilities Lack Expected Information

This last step in the scenario is the largest disappointment to the user. Locating their desired GMHA medical facility yields little information about it. A user in this scenario would expect at least the department’s contact information but to no avail. This usability flaw is a blatant disregard for user empathy in showing that GMHA cares about its stakeholders by simply providing highly relevant contact information under a webpage that explicitly states, ‘Area of Care’. While this information could be found on GMHA’s homepage, it’s obscurely placed amongst a plethora of similar-looking links making it unnecessarily difficult to locate this information.

As a result, this lack of contact information directly violates Nielsen’s heuristic of matching between the system and the real world. By not providing contact information, such as phone numbers, emails, or GMHA building locations, for this specific webpage, there exists a mismatch in expectations between GMHA’s website and its stakeholders. Such information should appear virtually on GMHA’s website as it does on contact cards, brochures, and other reading material in the real world.

5. Find a Provider: Results show blank white space

While this scenario differs slightly in its steps, the objective remains the same for the user. That is, they need to acquire contact information through a GMHA provider instead of a medical facility. Taking these steps, the user would click on ‘Find a Provider’ from the homepage. Another drop-down menu will display prompting the user to search for their provider through various means. The usability flaw arises when the user types in the last name, ‘Flores’ into the search box and selects ‘Search’. They are directed to a screen with GMHA header information and blank white space underneath ‘Find a Provider’. There is no indication or message that the system could not find a provider based on ‘Flores’.

This usability flaw directly violates Nielsen’s heuristic for users recognizing, diagnosing, and recovering from input errors. That is, the system should use plain language to notify the user of not being able to find a medical provider with that last name. Additionally, the system did not provide any solutions (or any indication) for recovering from said search criteria. Added to these usability flaws, the system’s lack of communication (feedback) to the user erodes their confidence in it. This demonstrates another heuristic violated–poor system visibility for the user.

Recommended Design Improvements

1. Re-work homepage design layout to better reflect the ‘essentials’

Reducing action commands on the homepage such as “GMHA in the News” and “Watch the Video” will improve readability by reducing ‘noise’. This will also keep users focused on locating essential information from the homepage. Additionally, the GMHA facilities phone directory must be clearly identified without requiring users to scroll down the page. Providing this directory in an easily identifiable way on the homepage greatly improves its aesthetics without frustrating users’ experience.

2. Minimalize the drop-down menu interface

The current menu layout does not present all the “essentials” that users need to make informed decisions. Therefore, it must be minimalized. Namely, removing all pictures, which can be considered ‘noise’. Additionally, presenting all GMHA medical facility directories immediately on the same menu with clear visibility (not at all like the homepage footer link arrangement). There will be an aesthetic element added to draw user’s attention to the medical facility directories. By implementing these two solutions, users will have better information scent that will keep the content and visual design of the menu layout simple.

3. Re-work programming logic to function as intended

The Area of Care webpage displays a long list of every GMHA medical facility. This webpage already has programming logic that will locate the appropriate facility based on the user’s selection from the drop-down menu. However, most selected facilities do not direct the user to their respective information on the webpage. If the user selects, “Pediatrics”, then the system will function as intended. Re-working the programming logic to function as it does for “Pediatrics” will tremendously improve webpage usability as it will improve system communication and user trust. Currently, the system simply resorts back to the top of the webpage (or anywhere else depending on the selected facility) with no clear feedback as to what happened, which leaves users confused and frustrated.

4. Provide contact information

Following real-world etiquette, providing contact information on the webpage matches GMHA’s interface with it. That is, users will know that GMHA is empathetic to their needs by displaying each medical facility’s contact information. Such information includes phone numbers, email addresses, and building locations. This approach solidifies expectations in the system with the user thereby improving website usability.

5. Provide system feedback and allow the user to recover from their search results.

Use plain language that clearly indicates the provider was not found based on the user’s search criteria. Additionally, the system must provide a link directing them back to the prior webpage. Providing immediate feedback for search tasks allows users to quickly assess their search results to make better decisions thereby improving system visibility. If the system could not find a provider, displaying a link that directs the user back to their search helps them recover from errors sooner in acquiring the right medical provider.

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Group Healthcare – Assignment 1

  1. Our group name is “Healthcare,” and our team members include Marjani Alceus, Peter Lis, James Murray, Matthew Post, and Robert Stewart.  
  1. We determined healthcare system websites as the type of sites to observe user interface and interaction. The following are major healthcare system sites: 
  1. Group Interest: 

Our interest in this type of site is simple: we are all consumers of healthcare and with it the many ways the industry leverages technology to deliver information and functionalities related to its consumption. Our experiences differ, but collectively we can relate in the frustrations of our own healthcare journeys whether that has been anxiously navigating the insurance marketplace on complicated or even non-functional government websites, booking an urgent care visit through a temperamental online scheduling system for what we were pretty sure – but also not so sure – was strep throat, or trying to find an in-network specialist for migraines through a confusing payer website directory.  

The healthcare industry in the United States accounts for nearly 20% of its GDP, or $4.1 trillion per year (CMS, 2021). Despite this shockingly high price tag, many healthcare consumers, like the members of this group, find the technology interfaces with our healthcare providers or payers to be in many cases disappointing or aggravating. As the healthcare industry transforms to meet the emerging needs of its consumers in a future where the demand will exceed providers’ capacity to treat, innovations in integrated digital strategies will be increasingly deployed to create efficiencies and to promote better health outcomes (Haddad et al., 2022). Health systems will continue to support their digital front door initiatives through the engagement they receive through their websites. Therefore, it is our group’s assertion that it is vitally useful to explore the usability of this type of site, as its usability has life-changing potential (Gidron, 2022).

Word Count: 318 

References 

A leader in whole-person health care. AdventHealth. (2022). Retrieved September 10, 2022, from https://www.adventhealth.com/ 

Access anytime anywhere. Cleveland Clinic. (2022). Retrieved September 10, 2022, from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/  

Gidron, Ziv. (2022). What is the digital front door in healthcare? Hyro.ai. https://www.hyro.ai/post/what-is-the-digital-front-door-in-healthcare  

Giving people a healthier Tomorrow. HCA Healthcare. (2022). Retrieved September 10, 2022, from https://hcahealthcare.com/  

Haddad, L.M., Annamaraju, P., & Toney-Butler, T.J. (2022). Nursing Shortage. StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK493175/  

Home: Intermountain healthcare. intermountainhealthcare.org. (2022). Retrieved September 10, 2022. from https://intermountainhealthcare.org/  

Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. (2022). Mayo Clinic. Retrieved September 10, 2022, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/  

U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (2021, December 15). The National Health Expenditure Accounts historical. https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/NationalHealthAccountsHistorical 

Yale New Haven Hospital – A Connecticut Hospital. (2022). Retrieved September 10, 2022, from https://www.ynhh.org/