title: Can prospective usability evaluation predict data errors?
abstract: Increasing amounts of clinical research data are collected by manual data entry into electronic source systems and directly from research subjects. For this manual entered source data, common methods of data cleaning such as post-entry identification and resolution of discrepancies and double data entry are not feasible. However data accuracy rates achieved without these mechanisms may be higher than desired for a particular research use. We evaluated a heuristic usability method for utility as a tool to independently and prospectively identify data collection form questions associated with data errors. The method evaluated had a promising sensitivity of 64% and a specificity of 67%. The method was used as described in the literature for usability with no further adaptations or specialization for predicting data errors. We conclude that usability evaluation methodology should be further investigated for use in data quality assurance.
authors.affiliation: Duke University, Durham, NC.
authors.forename: Constance M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: Meredith
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nahm
authors.forename: Ryan J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Shaw
authors.forename: Ashley
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dunham
authors.forename: Kristin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Newby
authors.forename: Rowena
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Dolor
authors.forename: Michelle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Smerek
authors.forename: Guilherme
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Del Fiol
authors.forename: Jiajie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D003625:Data Collection; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D011446:Prospective Studies; D014584:User-Computer Interface