Abstract
We developed a User-Testing Database to be able to process a greater amount of user data, from multiple sources of data, at a much finer level of granularity, and to be able to aid in a more sophisticated analysis, including specific queries of usability data than a typical “manual”-based usability analysis. In this paper, we demonstrate our User-Testing Database as applied to a usability assessment of the Veterans Affairs (VA) My HealtheVet personal health record. The usability test included 24 Veterans who completed a series of scenarios in the usability lab at a Midwest Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC). The User-Testing Database facilitated reduction of data gathered from video review, facilitator notes, and debrief notes into 1160 observations that were sorted into conceptual bins and summarized for the designers of the personal health record. From creation of the database to completion of the reports took four months and did not require extensive knowledge of qualitative analysis techniques. We argue a User-Testing Database can allow other usability studies to increase the number of participants and the granularity of the data without prohibitively increasing the amount of time and experience required to process the data gathered.
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