title: Human-centered design of a distributed knowledge management system.
abstract: Many healthcare technology projects fail due to the lack of consideration of human issues, such as workflow, organizational change, and usability, during the design and implementation stages of a project's development process. Even when human issues are considered, the consideration is typically on designing better user interfaces. We argue that human-centered computing goes beyond a better user interface: it should include considerations of users, functions and tasks that are fundamental to human-centered computing. From this perspective, we integrated a previously developed human-centered methodology with a Project Design Lifecycle, and we applied this integration in the design of a complex distributed knowledge management system for the Biomedical Engineer (BME) domain in the Mission Control Center at NASA Johnson Space Center. We analyzed this complex system, identified its problems, generated systems requirements, and provided specifications of a replacement prototype for effective organizational memory and knowledge management. We demonstrated the value provided by our human-centered approach and described the unique properties, structures, and processes discovered using this methodology and how they contributed in the design of the prototype.
authors.affiliation: School of Health Information Sciences, University of Texas School of Health Information Sciences at Houston, 7000 Fannin, Suite 600, Houston, TX 77030, USA. susan_rinkus@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rinkus
authors.forename: Muhammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Walji
authors.forename: Kathy A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Johnson-Throop
authors.forename: Jane T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Malin
authors.forename: James P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Turley
authors.forename: Jack W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Jiajie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D001698:Biomedical Engineering / Q000379:methods*; D003195:Computer Communication Networks; D003628:Database Management Systems; D016208:Databases, Factual; D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical; D006804:Ergonomics / Q000379:methods*; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods*; D012985:Software Design; D014481:United States; D018557:United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration; D014584:User-Computer Interface