title: A Modified User-Oriented Heuristic Evaluation of a Mobile Health System for Diabetes Self-management Support.
abstract: Mobile health platforms offer significant opportunities for improving diabetic self-care, but only if adequate usability exists. Expert evaluations such as heuristic evaluation can provide distinct usability information about systems. The purpose of this study was to complete a usability evaluation of a mobile health system for diabetes patients using a modified heuristic evaluation technique of (1) dual-domain experts (healthcare professionals, usability experts), (2) validated scenarios and user tasks related to patients' self-care, and (3) in-depth severity factor ratings. Experts identified 129 usability problems with 274 heuristic violations for the system. The categories Consistency and Standards dominated at 24.1% (n = 66), followed by Match Between System and Real World at 22.3% (n = 61). Average severity ratings across system views were 2.8 (of 4), with 9.3% (n = 12) rated as catastrophic and 53.5% (n = 69) as major. The large volume of violations with severe ratings indicated clear priorities for redesign. The modified heuristic approach allowed evaluators to identify unique and important issues, including ones related to self-management and patient safety. This article provides a template for one type of expert evaluation adding to the informaticists' toolbox when needing to conduct a fast, resource-efficient and user-oriented heuristic evaluation.
authors.affiliation: Author Affiliations: Department of Biomedical Informatics, University ofUtah, Salt Lake City (Mr Georgsson and Drs Staggers and Weir); Faculty of Computing, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona, Sweden (Mr Georgsson); School of Nursing, University of Maryland, Baltimore (Dr Staggers); VA Salt Lake City Health Care, Utah (Dr Weir).
authors.forename: Mattias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Georgsson
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Staggers
authors.forename: Charlene
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Weir
mesh_terms: D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D000066506:Heuristics; D006801:Humans; D012648:Self Care; D017216:Telemedicine; D014584:User-Computer Interface