User Testing to Assess Integration of Multi-lingual Health Content from National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) MedlinePlus and Health Reach.
2019, ICF supporting NIH NLM MedlinePlus
Project Summary | My Role | Challenges | Design Suggestions
Project Summary
The National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) HealthReach site was to be sunset and its content integrated into MedlinePlus. I performed user research to understand user needs and expectations surrounding the merger and provide design recommendations.
My Role
- In collaboration with the client I established a testing plan and created the test scripts.
- I conducted structured interviews and a/b testing
- I created interactive prototypes and conceptual wireframes using Axure
- For designs with multiple variations to be evaluated, designs were rotated presenting participants with a variety of “first looks” to off-set anchor bias.
- Instead of waiting until the end of the study to gather the findings and suggest improvements, I iterated the designs as soon as issues were discovered by one or two participants (the RITE method), allowing me to quickly test and get feedback on new solutions and ideas.
- Qualitative coding of usability notes was performed to facilitate the final analysis.
- From the data I identified, and developed, a set of persona that could be leveraged as integration was implemented and as additional functionality was introduced
- Reported findings and recommendations to NIH Medline leadership
Challenges
- Due to timing and Information Collection and Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) restrictions participants could not be sourced from the public. Understanding the public users needs had to be inferred from the opinions of NIH and NLM experts who interacted with them.
Human-Centered Design 