Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Nov 28;5(4):e10721.
doi: 10.2196/10721.

Bridging the Gap Between Academic Research and Pragmatic Needs in Usability: A Hybrid Approach to Usability Evaluation of Health Care Information Systems

Devin M Mann #  1   2 , Sara Kuppin Chokshi #  1 , Andre Kushniruk #  3
Affiliations

Bridging the Gap Between Academic Research and Pragmatic Needs in Usability: A Hybrid Approach to Usability Evaluation of Health Care Information Systems

Devin M Mann et al. JMIR Hum Factors. .

Abstract

Background: Technology is increasingly embedded into the full spectrum of health care. This movement has benefited from the application of software development practices such as usability testing and agile development processes. These practices are frequently applied in both commercial or operational and academic settings. However, the relative importance placed on rapid iteration, validity, reproducibility, generalizability, and efficiency differs between the 2 settings and the needs and objectives of academic versus pragmatic usability evaluations.

Objective: This paper explores how usability evaluation typically varies on key dimensions in pragmatic versus academic settings that impact the rapidity, validity, and reproducibility of findings and proposes a hybrid approach aimed at satisfying both pragmatic and academic objectives.

Methods: We outline the characteristics of pragmatic versus academically oriented usability testing in health care, describe the tensions and gaps resulting from differing contexts and goals, and present a model of this hybrid process along with 2 case studies of digital development projects in which we demonstrate this integrated approach to usability evaluation.

Results: The case studies presented illustrate design choices characteristic of our hybrid approach to usability evaluation.

Conclusions: Designed to leverage the strengths of both pragmatically and academically focused usability studies, a hybrid approach allows new development projects to efficiently iterate and optimize from usability data as well as preserves the ability of these projects to produce deeper insights via thorough qualitative analysis to inform further tool development and usability research by way of academically focused dissemination.

Keywords: medical informatics; software design; user-computer interface.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

References

    1. Hekler EB, Klasnja P, Riley WT, Buman MP, Huberty J, Rivera DE, Martin CA. Agile science: creating useful products for behavior change in the real world. Transl Behav Med. 2016 Jun;6(2):317–28. doi: 10.1007/s13142-016-0395-7. http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/27357001 10.1007/s13142-016-0395-7 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kushniruk A, Senathirajah Y, Borycki E. Effective Usability Engineering in Healthcare: A Vision of Usable and Safer Healthcare IT. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2017;245:1066–1069. - PubMed
    1. Kushniruk A, Nohr C, Borycki E. Human Factors for More Usable and Safer Health Information Technology: Where Are We Now and Where do We Go from Here? Yearb Med Inform. 2016;(1):120–125. doi: 10.15265/iy-2016-024. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Chokshi. SK. Mann. DM Four phases for user-centered digital development: Integrating academic and industry approaches to health information technology. JMIR Hum Factors. 2018 doi: 10.2196/11048. (forthcoming) - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Jaspers MWM. A comparison of usability methods for testing interactive health technologies: methodological aspects and empirical evidence. Int J Med Inform. 2009 May;78(5):340–53. doi: 10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2008.10.002.S1386-5056(08)00180-9 - DOI - PubMed