Workshop: Designing for usability and user experience in software implementations
Usability and user experience, referring to how usable software products and their user interfaces are to the end-users have become a major concern to product and software companies in the latest years. Typically, usability is related to how easy software is to learn, memorize, and use with satisfaction and without errors, and generally how well the software fits with end-users established understanding and work practices. Emphasizing usability and user experience in organizational settings have been associated with a variety of positive outcomes, such as the reduced need of end-user training, less data entry errors, increased data use, and increased technology acceptance and end-user satisfaction. This is highly relevant in health care and other complex organizational settings, where software such as DHIS2 is part of a complex web of activities and tasks that form the daily work of health workers and other end-users. Sadly, end-users in this context are often left with software that is experienced as a hassle, rather than a useful tool to their work activities, which also have adverse effects on the information system as a whole. Further, the problem may be magnified when systems are based on software packages serving multiple organizations and domains, such as DHIS2, rather than built from scratch to the particular needs within one organization. However, it does not have to be that way; through increased awareness of the phenomenon and the adoption of approaches to address usability, it is possible to build and implement software and user interfaces that fit better with the world of the end-users.
In this workshop, Joe Cooper (DHIS2 core UX designer) and Magnus Li (DHIS2 design lab lead) will present and discuss why usability and user experience is essential, and how it may be addressed during development and implementation of DHIS2. We will also present examples on what we are working with related to DHIS2 core and bundled app design and within various implementation projects. Prominent technical and method-related challenges will also be discussed between the participants of the workshop, hoping to provide interesting learnings for the participants as well as for us as designers of the DHIS2.
Part 1: Introduction to usability, user experience and design.
- The concepts of usability and user experience and potential benefits of emphasizing it in systems development and implementation.
- Traditional approaches and techniques to usability design.
- Usability design during software implementation.
- Topic-oriented discussions.
Part 2: Discussions on approaches, challenges and opportunities within DHIS2 implementations.
Learning outcomes:
- A general understanding of usability and user experience
- Basic knowledge about typical approaches and techniques
- Awareness of challenges related to usability-design during the implementation of generic software (i.e., DHIS2)
