Optimizing Collaboration in Healthcare Research

Project Format: Semester long consulting project for SI 622: Needs Assessment and Usability
Role: UX Researcher, User Testing Moderator, Interviewer, Report Writer
Time Span: January 2020 - April 2020 (4 months)
Task: Conduct UX research to provide recommendations for optimizing the member’s online directory tool for the University of Michigan’s Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation (IHPI)

Overview

As part of a semester long project, I was part of a team of four which we called Clicked Consulting, and was matched with a branch of Michigan Medicine known as IHPI, a research group that provides a collaborative environment to conduct research related to healthcare. They came to us to conduct UX research on their members directory tool to see if the taxonomy of information and language of the tool was well suited for its users. Multiple methods such as user interviews, surveys, and usability testing were employed for this project. The video below provides an overview of our research methods, findings, and recommendations throughout the project.

Methodology + My Roles

1. Interaction Map

Research Goal: To understand how the site is currently structured and identify user journeys.
Outcome: From our interaction map, we grasped a better understanding of the system, which helped us structure the research goals for our user interviews
Time Span: Two days.
My Role: I was responsible for taking screenshots of the website and actually putting the interaction map together, providing a static representation of how users would navigate the directory. To create this interaction map, I used LucidChart.

2. User Interviews

Research Goals: Identify the different user groups of the directory and their specific needs. Identify most accessible language for all user groups.
Outcome: We discovered the motivations behind different users’ visits to the directory, and prepared us to explore how other research organizations structure, manage, and present their information in their member directories in order to find successful concepts that could meet IHPI’s users’ motivations.
Time Span: Ten days.
My Role: I first collaboratively developed an interview script for each interview. Of the 5 interviews, I was the interviewer for one and the note-taker for another.

3. Competitive Analysis

Research Goal: Identify strategies used by other university research groups that facilitate research collaboration and other user goals.
Outcome: We discovered different ways to present members’ networks and past collaborators that could improve the navigation of IHPI’s directory, and make it easier to browse through the members’ pages.
Time Span: Five days.
My Role: I analyzed the members directory tool for the Duke Margolis Center and the UCSF Lee Institute, two “friendly competitors” of IHPI’s member directory.

4. Survey

Research Goal: To better understand how satisfied different user groups are with the IHPI directory.
Outcome: The survey helped us further identify user groups and their goals, which we compared to the directory to uncover where the directory fell short on meeting user needs. This prepares us for developing our heuristic evaluations so we can further examine these shortcomings.
Time Span: Ten days (survey deployed for 7 days, 3 days for analysis).
My Role: I worked collaboratively to develop the survey questions so that they aligned with our research goals. I created cross tabulations of the data using Qualtrics to uncover trends between IHPI members that use the directory vs. non-IHPI members that use the directory.

5. Heuristic Evaluation

Research Goal: To pinpoint where in the member’s directory users’ goals or expectations were not met so we can further explore these shortcomings in usability tests.
Outcome: The findings from the heuristic evaluations were used to prioritize which violations most affected the user, which allowed us to structure usability tests to focus on those violations and how they affect the user’s experience.
Time Span: Five days.
My Role: I first worked collaboratively to rewrite Nielsen’s heuristics to more directory apply to the IHPI directory. Then, I conducted an individual heuristic evaluation before coming together with my team and aggregating our results.

6. Usability Tests

Research Goal: To observe and understand how users actually interact with the IHPI directory, and pinpoint where the directory falls short of user goals and expectations, given the user goals we identified from our interviews and survey.
Outcome: The usability tests allowed us to understand how the filters in the search tool were confusing to users and where/how users expect to find certain pieces of information.
Time Span: Two weeks.
My Role: I first wrote scenarios to match with user personas we created to facilitate developing our test script. I worked collaboratively to write the script itself. Of the five usability tests, I moderated two and observed the other three. Tests were conducted remotely.

7. Final Video (above)

Goal: To present our high-level findings and recommendations.
Time Span: One week.
My Role: I was responsible for creating the visuals for the final video.

Explore my other projects:

Recycle King Halcyon Consulting Airbnb Design Jam

arycus@umich.edu | 734.926.6961