Setting the Course and Keeping It

1
Setting the Course and Keeping It

• Reflections on User-Orientation and Systems
  Acquisition in IT Systems in Swedish Health Care
• Josef Conning

2
Introduction

• Vast number of users need to access/enter
  critical patient data, sometimes in critical
  situations
• Many serious usability problems

3
Lack of usability focus 1 (2)

• Multiple windows (affecting one another in
  unclear ways)
• Patient data presented in long unstructured lists
• Lack of standards in information presentation
• Incompatible systems must be used in parallel
• Example

4
Lack of usability focus 2 (2)

• Consequences include increase in
• the risk of making errors
• the time needed to perform tasks
• overtime hours
• stress-related symptoms
• Possible reasons
• Inadequate knowledge about how to procure usable
  IT systems
• Insufficient IT governance
• Insufficient project execution

5
Problems regarding the procurement process

• Procurers often have medical background
• Not the adequate competence for
• Evaluating existing IT systems
• Form requirements for new IT systems
• Example
• Poor judgement or prestige
• Example

6
Problems regarding IT governance

• Business and user goals are not considered
• Example
• Lack of transparency in decision-making processes
• Established who is responsible for a decision,
  what the decision is and why the decision was
  made
• Often irrational factors behind decisions (such
  decisions seldom explained)
• Unspecified decision-maker

7
Problems regarding project execution

• New ideas, questions, possibilities and alternate
  routes
• Sometimes bad decisions can be hard to avoid
• Sometimes they can easily be avoided, but are not
  due to poor judgement or prestige

8
Using business and user goals

• Setting the course
• Identify business and user goals
• Form requirements based on these goals
• and keeping it
• Use these goals as means of steering the project
  through the development phase
• These goals are easily distributed within or
  between organizations, thus, they help solve the
  transparency problem

9
Identifying business and user goals
Why?
What?
How?
Who?
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GUI Design
Business goals
Requirement specification
Analysis
User goals
Evaluation
Evaluated prototype
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Business goal overview
Personas
Scenarios
10
User goals - Personas

• Persona hypothesis
• Perform user research
• Identify behavioural variables
• Identify clusters ? personas
• Convert behavioural variables to descriptions
• Identify goals using variables and raw data

11
Suggestion

• Means to acquire usable IT systems
• Avoid making bad or irrational decisions when
  developing them
• Further investigations needed
• Help create more useable IT systems for the
  health care area

12
Thank You.
josef.conning_at_antrop.se