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Patient Portal
Usability testing at a leading U.S. pediatric center's portal aimed to enhance end user experience.
Research Findings
IA mismatched users' mental model
Clinical jargon was confusing
Poor navigation led to abandonment
NOTE: Confidentiality limits sharing the pediatric center or patient portal's name. Please view this case study on a computer for the best experience.
Project Overview: Usability testing to enhance end-user experience.
One of the largest pediatric centers in the USA, located in Boston, MA, has a patient portal built over 20 years ago. Over 60% of their users access the patient portal through mobiles, and 97% of their Spanish-speaking users access their patient portal through mobiles. A usability testing of their patient portal has focused on enhancing user satisfaction and patient experience and lowering cognitive load for end users.
Role
Heuristic evaluator, Moderator and Observer
Timeline
3 months
(Sep 2022 to Dec 2022)
Team
5 Heuristic Evaluators and Usability Testers including me
Limitation
Limited bandwidth of tech to implement any major overhauls
Problem: Users preferred phone calls over online portal, increasing workload
Despite the online patient portal's availability, most users opted for traditional methods, like phone calls, for booking doctor appointments and requesting medicine refills and reports, bypassing the online portal's time-saving automation and increasing workload for the pediatric center.
Objective: Usability Study to identify UX issues and provide recommendations
The purpose of this study was to identify and comprehensively document user experience (UX) issues that were present on the mobile website, as well as to provide well-reasoned recommendations to fix them.
Process: Okay, how did I get there?
Employed the four-step process illustrated below to identify the fundamental UX concerns leading to the problem.
PROBLEM
2. Defining User Tasks & Usability Testing Protocol
4. Usability Testing &
Affinity Mapping
1. Heuristic Analysis
3. Recruiting Participants
UX Issues Discovery
NOTE: The slideshow displays detailed artifacts from this project.
Product to be Tested: Patient Portal, mobile website
Tasks & Insights: What tasks did we have participants perform to identify their pain-points?
Based on insights from the heuristic analysis, the following tasks were designed to assess the target audience's ease and efficiency in completing key activities.
Task 1: Schedule a new appointment
Task 2: View patient healthcare records
Task 3: Send a message to a doctor
Task 4: Change the language
Overall Recommendations: What could be improved?
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Consider conducting a card sorting exercise with actual Patient Portal users to improve the information architecture of the site to better meet users’ mental models.
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Review options for both smaller (quick) fixes that might address the issues within the navigation, as well as the options for a larger system overhaul that would better reflect the user needs.
More Works
Backpackers: Travel Planning App
MAPLE: Legislative Engagement Platform (Coming Soon)
SafeC: Driving Safety App
MIT Reality Hack 24 Project
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