Disclaimer: The visuals you see on this page are tweaked selections coming from my final UXR report. It is for showcasing my research reporting ability.

Background and Goals

The product and medical SMEs teams needed evidence from research to determine how to address negative feedback gathered by our support team. Some key goals we had were:

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Design Research Goals

• Understand what elements of the tool in review were causing user confusion

• Evaluate how can we improve accuracy and decrease user error while using the Drug Dosing Calculator

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Method

Why Usability Testing? In order to answer the questions our team had, we needed both attitudinal and behavioral data. Collecting task analysis data through iterative usability testing allowed me to discover where users were failing to complete their task and why they made those mistakes.

Users were asked to complete 2 example weight based dosage calculations on the epocrates app. These tasks were chosen as they request the user to address and engage with a wide range of variables presented in the user journey. Both tasks should result in a specific answer. These tasks allowed us to address user success. I then followed up with a rating scale. This process was repeated 3 times over; each time improving upon the last iteration.

Crucial Insights

When setting off to uncover the source of user confusion and improve accuracy, I found there were multiple ways the user experience could be improved. Our historic design failed to assist users in accomplishing their tasks because it lacked specificity and direction users needed when conducting a calculation.

The most prominent problem arose when users were confronted with a multitude of text fields which were ambiguous and often unnecessary. Not only were they confused by the multiple text fields; users believed they were required to fill in all blocks. This leads to our first opportunity to improve by only displaying necessary fields.

The second insight is a common thread in healthcare, Users were confused by the meaning of certain copy. When dealing with dosing, the phrase Liquid Concentration resonated better than Strength. Although both mean the same thing, the changing to the newer term Liquid Concentration improved the results of the task analysis.

The final finding was one that comes with an unfortunate limitation. As a legacy product, the epocrates app often comes with some non intuitive and ugly design patterns. One of these old design styles was recognized as being problematic for our users. When presented with the display of drug information, user found the information busy and confusing when presented as one long string of text. Based on the company’s CMS limitations, the team documented the recommendations within Confluence for future reference in future roadmap planning.

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For additional findings and learnings, please contact allieshenner@gmail.com

Research Impact

Direct Product Impact: research pointed out one clear design direction

• Research pointed out one clear design direction that attended to our design research goals

Research Function Growth: increased communication between cross functional teams allowed for future higher influence and involvement on an organizational level.

• Increased value in our line of work and value of research in general as we fixed a problem that had a history of bandaids that never solved for anything because they didnt know how!

• Increased consultation with the UXR team and cross functional partners when making crucial product decisions

• UXR gained a seat at the table with the legacy arm of the organization (old guard)

My Learnings

• Siloed teams are dangerous but can be improved by meeting with these teams regularly and building rapport. Building this rapport allows them to inform UXR issues they’ve uncovered themselves. There is sometimes shame when a team member internalizes a product issue as their fault.
  Some are motivated by feedback, others want to sweep it under the rug. Frequent and open collaboration helps break this habit.
  

• The more you engage stakeholders in every stage of the research process, the more they are willing to act upon your findings.