Ben Alfonsin
           Deceptive Designer
           Cayuse IRB
           Vidura
           Simple Interact
           Cam’s Curios
           Graphic Design

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Simple Interact

I was tasked with assisting the Vice President of Product of a medical software company test out experimental cross-platform features on a front desk automation program during a semester-long micro-internship. My findings resulted in the elimination of 18 design and programming bugs.
Tools: Zoom
Methods: Heuristic identification, task analysis, usability testing

1. Heuristic Identification

To set a baseline for analysis, 10 medical software design heuristics were accumulated from past research.

  1. Consistency and standards: wording and information are kept consistent in structure across screens (Tang et al., 2006; Aabel & Abeywarna, 2018). 
  2. Visibility of system state: users can understand what is happening at all times and their progress within the system (Tang et al., 2006). 
  3. Match between system and world: the design should match the mental model of how real concepts function, such as appointment scheduling systems or SMS services (Tang et al., 2006). 
  4. Minimalist design: only relevant information be provided to the user (Tang et al., 2006). 
  5. Provide informative feedback: lets users know that their actions have been received by the system (Tang et al., 2006; Aabel & Abeywarna, 2018). 
  6. Anti-error design: prevents users from causing errors and communicates what went wrong should they run into an error (Tang et al., 2006; Aabel & Abeywarna, 2018). 
  7. Reversible actions: allow recovery from errors to be possible (Tang et al., 2006).
  8. Use user language: no confusing medical jargon is used in the system that could impede user progress through the system (Tang et al., 2006). 
  9. Accessibility: particularly relevant in a health system that may be used by populations with varying needs (Aabel & Abeywarna, 2018).
  10. Providing training: teach the users how to utilize the system before confusion arises (Aabel & Abeywarna, 2018). 


2. Task Analysis

Two task flows were identified: patient on mobile and staff on desktop devices.

Each task was evaluated against the selected heuristics using a Likert-item scale (Khowaja & Al-Thani, 2020):
0: No issue 1: Cosmetic blemishes 2: Minor issues 3: Major issues 4: Catastrophic issues


3. Usability Testing

Using the 10 heuristics, each task flow was evaluated for design issues on a scale of 0 to 4. 18 bugs were found using this process, highlighted below in red.

Staff Flow Patient Flow