A Toolkit for the Usability Evaluation of Digital Health Technologies

Introduction: NHS digital applications are often assessed against the NHS Digital Technology Assessment Criteria (DTAC). However, Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) developers often find DTAC itself ‘heavy going’. One criterion of DTAC is usability and SME developers need guidance on how to meet this criterion. My PhD is a four-part study to develop such guidance.

Methods: (i) a scoping review of the methods of usability testing, (ii) development of a novel way of employing a usability scale, dividing it into discrete chunks to prevent “questionnaire fatigue“, (iii) development of a toolkit, (iv) application of the toolkit with SMEs.

Results: (i) The scoping review identified 133 papers. (ii) The simpler way of administering the usability scale gave comparable results. (iii) I developed a toolkit that gives guidance on which testing method to employ, the number of participants, and the types of output. (iv) I have used the toolkit to guide three SMEs (two more in progress) in testing digital health technologies.

Conclusions: The toolkit will aid SMEs in meeting DTAC criterion for usability. Further research is needed to refine and validate the toolkit and develop methods for evaluating new types of digital health applications such as virtual reality and voice interfaces.

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Inocencio Daniel Maramba

Conference

Publication date: July 2022

Publication date (Print): July 2022

Pages: 1-6

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[0001]Faculty of Health University of Plymouth

8-11 Kirkby Place, Plymouth, PL4 8AA

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/HCI2022.55

SO-VID: c42dbd86-70ae-4099-ad69-6e18743d8148

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: 35th International BCS Human-Computer Interaction Conference

Conference acronym: HCI2022

Conference number: 35

Conference location: Keele, Staffordshire

Conference date: July 11th to 13th, 2022

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Towards a Human-Centred Digital Society

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1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/HCI2022.55

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

Digital Technology Assessment Criteria (DTAC) - Key tools and information - NHS Transformation Directorate. (n.d.). Retrieved April 27, 2022, from https://www.nhsx.nhs.uk/key-tools-and-info/digital-technology-assessment-criteria-dtac/
Ehealth Productivity and Innovation in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (EPIC) - University of Plymouth. (n.d.). Retrieved October 6, 2017, from https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/research/epic
Maramba, I., Chatterjee, A. and Newman, C., 2019. Methods of usability testing in the development of eHealth applications: a scoping review. International journal of medical informatics, 126, pp.95-104.
Maramba, I.D. and Chatterjee, A., 2022. Continuous user experience monitoring of a patient-completed preoperative assessment system in the United Kingdom: cross-sectional study. JMIRx Med, 3(1), p.e31679.
NHS. The NHS long term plan. 2019. https://www.longtermplan.nhs.uk/ National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, 2019. Evidence standards framework for digital health technologies.
Pohl, M., 2017. mHealth APP economics 2017/2018: current status and future trends in mobile health. Research2Guidance, Berlin, Germany.

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[1] Digital Technology Assessment Criteria (DTAC) - Key tools and information - NHS Transformation Directorate. (n.d.). Retrieved April 27, 2022, from https://www.nhsx.nhs.uk/key-tools-and-info/digital-technology-assessment-criteria-dtac/

[2] Ehealth Productivity and Innovation in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (EPIC) - University of Plymouth. (n.d.). Retrieved October 6, 2017, from https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/research/epic

[3] Maramba, I., Chatterjee, A. and Newman, C., 2019. Methods of usability testing in the development of eHealth applications: a scoping review. International journal of medical informatics, 126, pp.95-104.

[4] Maramba, I.D. and Chatterjee, A., 2022. Continuous user experience monitoring of a patient-completed preoperative assessment system in the United Kingdom: cross-sectional study. JMIRx Med, 3(1), p.e31679.

[5] NHS. The NHS long term plan. 2019. https://www.longtermplan.nhs.uk/ National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, 2019. Evidence standards framework for digital health technologies.

[6] Pohl, M., 2017. mHealth APP economics 2017/2018: current status and future trends in mobile health. Research2Guidance, Berlin, Germany.

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