BACKGROUND
A clinical application should be optimized to streamline information access and improve user experience.
The Dynamic Member View application is designed to help clinicians efficiently gather critical patient information before engaging with them. This project focused on understanding user behavior and assessing the ease of use of the application, aiming to identify pain points and navigation challenges to guide improvements in future product features.
SCOPE
Led end-to-end usability research to deliver actionable insights and inform design decisions.
Designed and conducted usability studies, led the analysis and synthesis of findings, presented actionable recommendations to stakeholders and the design team.
RESEARCH QUESTION & GOAL
Users may not be utilizing the Dynamic Member View (DMV) as intended.
Question: How are users finding what they need in DMV and is the process efficient?
Goal: Uncover key pain points in using DMV to research patients prior to engagement.
RESEARCH PLAN
Conducted a moderated virtual usability study with diverse healthcare professionals to evaluate the user experience.
Participants: 4 leaders/supervisors
3 care managers with varied application experience
Duration: 60 minutes
Environment: Virtual on Microsoft Teams
Type: Moderated usability study
Timeline: Nov-Dec 2023
USABILITY STUDY
Moderated usability studies were conducted to evaluate how participants navigate and find patient data.
Participants were recruited based on their organizational role and experience level.
UX and visual designers created prototypes to be used in the study.
We conducted 7 moderated usability studies via Microsoft Teams. A member of the UX team shared their screen and gave screen access to each participant for control of the screen.
Due to HIPAA regulations, the studies were performed in a test environment and were not recorded.
Three note takers captured participant statements, clicks, and behaviors.
Participants were walked through tasks that involved searching for and finding relevant data about a patient prior to engaging with them in order to be able to guide their care.
ANALYSIS & SYNTHESIS
From the data, patterns and themes were discovered and insights were captured.
KEY FINDINGS
Users faced navigation challenges, unclear content, and undefined terminology across multiple sections, impacting ease of use and data interpretation.
Care Neighborhood: Users were uncertain about the content and experienced difficulties with excessive scrolling.
Home Services: Truncated text and hover-dependent details made it difficult to determine available services.
Utilization Snapshot: Users found it hard to interpret changes due to unclear badges and symbols (e.g., `/`).
Clinical and Behavioral Health Summary (CBHS): Navigation and readability challenges due to table design, excessive scrolling, and unclear column resizing. Trends in lab data were difficult to identify.
Demographics: Users had trouble locating this section.
Terminology: Terms like "highlights" and abbreviations like "SIOH" were not clear to users.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Recommendations aimed to improve navigation, clarity, and usability with better layouts, reduced scrolling, and clear terminology
Care Neighborhood:
- Define the section's purpose with visuals or hover states.
- Use horizontal/vertical cards to reduce scrolling.
Utilization Snapshot:
- Add a close button (X) or toggle to navigate back home quickly.
- Redefine badges for clarity with terms like "new" or "updated."
CBHS Table Design:
- Expandable or larger table layouts to reduce scrolling.
- Differentiate labs, tests, and screenings to avoid redundancy.
- Use indicators (e.g., red/green or arrows) to show lab results in/out of range.
- Highlight auto-resize column functionality with a hover button or settings placement.
Home Services:
- Integrate into CBHS as a table to improve visibility and reduce reliance on truncated text.
Demographics:
- Refine the mid-fidelity design to make this section more intuitive and accessible.
General Terminology:
- Define ambiguous terms (e.g., "highlights" and "SIOH") clearly within the interface.
IMPACT & REFLECTION
Findings inspired a redesign and stakeholder involvement was key to buy in
Impact: These findings led to a reimagining of the layout of DMV to better accommodate efficient research so that clinicians could spend more time engaging with patients.
Reflection: I learned just how essential it is to include stakeholders along every step of the research process. If they see how participants interact with the application and see their pain points firsthand, they are more likely to buy into recommendations as a result of the research.