Simple Interact


Micro-internship project developing a desktop to mobile communication program.


Background and Goals

Simple Interact is an automation platform designed to streamline the front-office processes of healthcare providers, offering contactless services like patient intake, appointment requests, and feedback management. The platform's new feature aims to extend communication between healthcare staff and patients via SMS, allowing staff to text patients through registered phone numbers. Patients can also complete forms, such as patient intake and insurance details, via SMS prompts.

The goal of this usability study was to evaluate the usability of the SMS service from both staff and patient perspectives to ensure the platform is user-friendly and intuitive. The evaluation process identified 17 key issues and provided actionable recommendations to improve the experience for both healthcare staff and patients.
        Research Goals:
         1.      Evaluate the usability of SMS integration for both staff and patients.
        2.     Identify usability issues in the communication flow and form completion process.
        3.     Rank usability issues based on severity and recommend design improvements.

    Role and Timeframe

    Role:     I conducted a heuristic evaluation of the SMS integration, assessed the usability of the platform, identified key issues, and proposed improvements.

    Timeframe: 2 months

    • Task analysis and literature review: 2 weeks
    • Heuristic evaluation and identification of usability issues: 3 weeks
    • Analysis, final report write-up, and presentation of results: 2 weeks
    Methods (3 Users)

    Task Analysis: Conducted a task analysis for both staff and patients to identify core tasks. For the staff side, tasks like managing and responding to messages were highlighted. For patients, tasks like filling out intake forms and responding via SMS were analyzed.

    Heuristic Evaluation: A heuristic evaluation was conducted using Nielsen’s (1995) heuristics, focusing on system consistency, user feedback, error prevention, and more. The system was assessed using a Likert scale (0-4) to rate the severity of usability issues.

    Usability Evaluation: After evaluating each task against the selected heuristics, 17 usability issues were identified—13 from staff interactions and 4 from patient interactions.
    Critical Insights  

           Staff: Lack of training led to confusion, and the absence of informative feedback made it difficult to track system status. Reversible actions and anti-error design were also significant issues.
           Patients: Anti-error design issues, such as submitting incomplete forms, were problematic. Additionally, patients were unable to switch languages or edit forms after submission, creating a soft-lock.
    Prioritized Recommendations

    • Staff:
      • Provide pop-up training guides or tooltips to assist first-time users in navigating the system.
      • Implement error prevention measures, such as confirming actions before archiving messages.
      • Ensure consistent design across all pages, improving system usability and recognition.
    • Patients:
      • Introduce error prevention mechanisms, such as mandatory fields for photo submissions before form submission.
      • Allow patients to switch languages and edit forms after submission for greater flexibility.
    Lessons Learned

    • Focus on specific, high-priority issues in future studies to avoid overloading the team with minor issues.
    • Ensure that users are provided with clear instructions and guides to help them interact effectively with new features.
    • Gather continuous feedback from users throughout the development process to ensure issues are identified and resolved quickly.