Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Human Factors
Date Submitted: May 5, 2023
Date Accepted: Oct 5, 2023
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Rapid Usability Testing Within the Iterative Design of an Online Psychological Program for Adolescents and Young Adults with Headaches
ABSTRACT
Background:
Headache disorders are among the most common and debilitating health problems worldwide. Cognitive-behavioral interventions are recommended for the treatment of primary headache disorders, but rarely available because of the low resources allocated to this modality. With the use of the Internet and communication technologies among youth and young adults such programs could be delivered widely. There is an increasing number of studies and internet-based interventions for headaches, but there has been little research into the usability of these interventions.
Objective:
This paper will show rapid and affordable usability testing can be performed throughout the program and system development lifecycle and will provide evidence of the usability of the programs. Specialized Program for Headache Reduction (SPHERE) was developed to help adolescents and young adults better understand their headaches and learn self-management cognitive and behavioral skills to manage their headaches. We aimed to improve SPHERE through usability testing with end-users.
Methods:
We used the usability testing method developed by Steve Krug, an industry expert in systems usability testing. We planned to test SPHERE with 3-5 participants each cycle. The ”think-aloud” method in a lab followed by an interview was used. Both design/development team and research team actively participated in the usability testing process, acting as testing facilitator and observers taking notes during usability sessions. At the end of each session observers independently wrote down the top three usability issues they observed, rated their severity, and after all sessions, came together for a debriefing session to generate potential solutions to fix those issues consensually rated as major ones.
Results:
The testing process allowed major usability issues to be identified and rectified before piloting SPHERE in the real context. Two cycles of testing were conducted. 68% and 31.5% of the usability issues encountered in cycle 1 and 2 respectively were rated as major, were discussed and fixed.
Conclusions:
SPHERE will be further evaluated in a field study. This study shows that usability testing is an essential part of the design process that improves usability and can be easy and inexpensive to undertake.
Citation
