ABSTRACT

Health information technology (HIT) is a critical component of the modern healthcare system. Yet to be effective and safely implemented in healthcare organizations and physicians and patients’ lives, it must be usable and useful. User Experience (UX) research is required throughout the full system design lifecycle of HIT products, which involve a user-centered and human- centered approach. This book discusses UX research frameworks, study designs, methods, data-analysis techniques, and a variety of data collection instruments and tools that can be used to conduct UX research in the healthcare space, all of which involve HIT and digital health. This book is for academics and scholars to be used to design studies for graduate dissertation work, in independent research, or as a textbook for UX/usability courses in health informatics or related health information and communication courses. This book is also useful for UX practitioners because it provides guidance on how to design a user research or usability study and focuses on leveraging a mixed- methods approach, including step-by-step by instructions and best practices for conducting:

  • Field studies
  • Interviews
  • Focus groups
  • Diary studies
  • Surveys
  • Heuristic evaluation 
  • Cognitive walkthrough 
  • Think aloud

A plethora of standardized surveys and retrospective questionnaires (SUS, Post-study System Usability Questionnaire (PSSUQ)) are also included. UX researchers and healthcare professionals will gain an understanding of how to design a rigorous, yet feasible study that generates useful insights to inform the design of usable HIT. Everything from consent forms to how many participants to include in a usability study has been covered in this book. The author encourages user-centered design (UCD), mixed-methods, and collaboration amongst interdisciplinary teams. Knowledge from many inter-related disciplines, like psychology, technical communication (TC), and human-computer interaction (HCI), together with experiential knowledge from experts is offered throughout the text.

chapter 1|8 pages

Introduction

chapter 2|18 pages

Definitions

Usability, UX, and UCD

chapter 4|8 pages

Quantitative and Qualitative Methods

chapter 5|14 pages

Mixed-Methods Study Design and Rigor

chapter 6|30 pages

Content Analysis

chapter 7|20 pages

Discovery UX Research Studies

chapter 8|20 pages

Usability Inspection Methods

chapter 11|6 pages

Conclusion