JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Co-design (or the participation of users) has shown great potential in the eHealth domain. Despite the impressive literature on co-design, there are few empirical results of the co-designed product on system success  or the capacity for the system developed to achieve its objectives. In order to help caregivers in providing care for functionally impaired older people, an eHealth tool was co-design with caregivers, health and social service professionals and community workers assisting caregivers. The result was a prototype of a website aiming to 1) support the help-seeking process for caregivers (finding resources) and 2) allow service providers to advertise their services (offering resources).

Objective:

This study aimed to assess the reach of the objectives of the co-design prototype through a usability evaluation.

Methods:

The exploratory study method was chosen to assess the usability of each objective. The first step was assessing users first impression of the website. The second was a task scenario with a think-aloud protocol. The last step was a semi-structured interview. All steps were performed individually (with a moderator) in a single session. Data was analyzed with three frameworks: ISO 9241-210, Nielsen's heuristic classification and Garrett's Element of User Experience.

Results:

A total of 10 participants were recruited, five for each objective of the website. Findings suggest a tendency between knowledge production during co-design sessions and usability results, highlighting the benefits of this approach on usability. We were able to identify several usability problems, most of them being dimensions (Garrett’s framework) for which less time was allowed during the co-design project: Information design and Interface design. Problems in both were mainly related to Effectiveness and Efficiency (ISO Framework). Problems were mostly identified as Error prevention and Match between system and the real world (Nielsen’s heuristic).

Conclusions:

Our study provides empirical data that contribute to the understanding of how the co-design approach can relate to system success. We also provided a novel contribution on usability analysis by combining three different models to classify problems found. This combination provides a holistic understanding of usability improvements needed.