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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Camille K. Haylock and Sue Teigen. Center for Health Information Technology, Constella Group, LLC, 6003 Executive Blvd., Suite 400, Rockville, MD 20852, 240.514.2600, chaylock@constellagroup.com

Usability is a practice and process often discussed but little understood and often mis-applied. As public health agencies rely more and more on their Web sites to help educate constituents, inform decisions, and drive behavior, many realize that usability is the key.

One of these agencies—the National Institutes of Health—increasingly employs usability engineering and testing to produce successful Web sites–sites that actually work for their users. We examine specific case studies from within NIH to illustrate usability's role in producing that success. For example, the National Institute of General Medical Sciences implemented usability testing to provide recommendations for organizing site content The National Cancer Institute's Office of Women's Health Web site employed usability techniques to gauge the target audience's ability to locate specific information. And at the Clinical Center, a usability-engineering process guided the entire redesign of the public Web site, ultimately demonstrating measurable benefits in ease of use, speed of information finding, and satisfaction level.

This session will focus on the application of process and techniques within usability studies at the National Institutes of Health.

Learning Objectives:

• At the conclusion of the session, the participant will be able to
• 1. Outline the elements of good usability practice.
• 2. Understand how to apply these elements to improve health information Web sites.
• 3. Assess the lessons learned from usability studies completed at the National Institutes of Health and other public health agencies.

Keywords: Information Technology, World Wide Web

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation