TY - GEN
T1 - Development and evaluation of a patient information website for childhood cancer survivors
AU - Knijnenburg, Sebastiaan L.
AU - Kremer, Leontien C.
AU - Versluys, A. Birgitta
AU - Van Der Beek, Jaldert R.J.
AU - Jaspers, Monique W.M.
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - Usability evaluation is an essential step in health care system development, including patient information websites. In this study we compared the think aloud method (TA) and the heuristic evaluation (HE) in a case study on the development of a website for childhood cancer survivors. Both methods managed to uncover all major problems with the website, though additionally HE found cosmetic issues and the TA found problems with website content. These findings contradict earlier studies but may be explained by the inclusion of two double experts in our study, presumably enabling them to take on the role of 'a patient' in testing the website. We nevertheless recommend the use of both methods if adequate funding and expertise are available; otherwise when HE usability evaluators are not familiar with the system domain, a work-domain expert could assist them in tackling domain-specific problems.
AB - Usability evaluation is an essential step in health care system development, including patient information websites. In this study we compared the think aloud method (TA) and the heuristic evaluation (HE) in a case study on the development of a website for childhood cancer survivors. Both methods managed to uncover all major problems with the website, though additionally HE found cosmetic issues and the TA found problems with website content. These findings contradict earlier studies but may be explained by the inclusion of two double experts in our study, presumably enabling them to take on the role of 'a patient' in testing the website. We nevertheless recommend the use of both methods if adequate funding and expertise are available; otherwise when HE usability evaluators are not familiar with the system domain, a work-domain expert could assist them in tackling domain-specific problems.
KW - Childhood cancer
KW - Heuristic evaluation
KW - Think aloud analysis
KW - Usability evaluation
KW - Website
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=72249119596&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3233/978-1-60750-044-5-342
DO - 10.3233/978-1-60750-044-5-342
M3 - Conference contribution
C2 - 19745326
AN - SCOPUS:72249119596
SN - 9781607500445
T3 - Studies in Health Technology and Informatics
SP - 342
EP - 346
BT - Medical Informatics in a United and Healthy Europe - Proceedings of MIE 2009
PB - IOS Press
T2 - 22nd International Conference on Medical Informatics Europe, MIE 2009
Y2 - 30 August 2009 through 2 September 2009
ER -