Student in a team of 4 classmates with a focus on audio & visual set-up
Establish baseline user performance and user-satisfaction levels of the user interface
Determine design inconsistencies and usability problem areas
Validate claims of offering expert advice and preparing users for everyday emergencies
A stranger has fallen to the ground in the street and people gather around worried about the person’s health. No one in the crowd is a healthcare professional, so the user pulls out their phone and opens the First Aid application. They go to the CPR module that guides them to check if the person is breathing. When the person is not breathing, the user calls 911 from the application. Then the user continues with the instructions of administering CPR until the ambulance arrives.
A non-native English speaker is experiencing a diabetic medical emergency. To communicate what they need, they show the diabetics module to the nearest stranger and ask for help.
A person is getting ready for a trip and expects a heat wave, so they learn about the related medical emergencies, test their knowledge with quizzes, and prepare an emergency kit.
A friend needs immediate medical attention, so the user opens the “Hospital” tab and locates the nearest hospital with an emergency room.
Conducted studies in a usability lab with three views of the user's interaction with the screen
Recruited a total of 16 participants with and without first aid and/or CPR experience and native and non-native English speakers
Measures
Performance: Completion rate, error-free rate, time on task
Behavioral: Observations from note takers
Subjective: Rating scale of ease from 1- 5 (5 being the easiest)
Main Use Cases
Scenarios
Tasks
Probes & Perceptions
Received an A grade on the full report and the professor referred to the report as a good example for other groups
The most noteworthy task-based and interface-based findings summarized below:
Locate the "Quiz" tab
Participants were asked what they would do if they wanted to refresh their First Aid/CPR knowledge and make sure they knew what to do. We wanted to know which tab they would use to check that they have retained the knowledge. All 4 participants failed to go to the Quiz tab. All 4 went to the Learn tab as they wanted to relearn the information. One of them didn’t even notice the Quiz tab initially and said would either use the Learn or Emergency tab.
Takeaway: Place the “Quiz tab”” or quiz section inside of the Learn tab. At the end of each educational topic within the learn section, there should be a link or a button that allows users to easily take a quiz to see if they retained what they learned in the “Learn” tab.
Get directions to a hospital with an emergency room
The participants were asked to get directions to a hospital with an emergency room. Although only 2 of the 7 participants failed to correctly complete this task because they didn’t notice the ER symbol in the list of hospitals, all 7 participants mentioned that the ER was too small. In fact, 2 participants who correctly completed this task did not notice the ER label at first and only once they noticed it, did they correctly identify the nearest hospital with an ER.
Furthermore, of the 7 participants, 5 of them had difficulty getting directions because they were unsure what to click on to bring up Google Maps/Apple Maps app. This interface gave users the impression that they would be able to tap the map to be taken to a maps app, but the interaction behavior was inconsistent.
Takeaway: The difference between emergency and non-emergency use cases on this app is important to remember, because the emergency use case suggests the high priority of being able to get directions to a hospital that has an emergency room. However, the ER label on each hospital is easily overlooked, and the difference between these two types of hospitals (with or without an emergency room) is not properly emphasized. Additionally, the interface with contact information for each hospital should provide clearer affordances of how to open the directions.
Emergency Tab
Finding: In an emergency situation, many users commented that it would be very unlikely that they would read text due to the stressful nature. Experienced users noticed that key information were left out of the steps if a naive user were using this app as a reference. For example, there is a certain position to hold a baby when administering back and chest thrusts if they are choking. The image on the left is not provided in the “Emergency” tab on the right.
Recommendation: It would be ideal if the graphics provided in the “Learn” tab remained in the “Emergency” tab. This could provide visual cues to the user rather than solely text.
Finding: In an emergency situation, many users commented that it would be very unlikely that they would read text due to the stressful nature. Experienced users noticed that key information were left out of the steps if a naive user were using this app as a reference. For example, there is a certain position to hold a baby when administering back and chest thrusts if they are choking. The image on the left is not provided in the “Emergency” tab on the right.
Recommendation: It would be ideal if the graphics provided in the “Learn” tab remained in the “Emergency” tab. This could provide visual cues to the user rather than solely text.