Improving User Experience and Accessibility of Online Medical Test Data via Gameful Design

In this project, we plan to study and improve the existing Best Tests section of the Clinician Portal from Alpha Laboratories. Best Tests provides metrics to clinicians that allow them to compare the effectiveness and cost of their test ordering patterns. However, the problem is that many of these comparison metrics are not easy to understand and even harder to integrate into the existing routines of doctors, nurse practitioners, and lab orderers (i.e., clinicians). This is a significant research problem, because if clinicians could alter their testing strategies based on these metrics, it would result in savings for the healthcare sector and faster results for patients. To address this design problem, we propose to improve the user experience and accessibility of the currently existing Best Tests online medical test data section using gameful design. We will iteratively improve the online experience using online prototypes and data collection from real clinicians, following a rapid iterative testing (RITE) approach alongside traditional online user studies. We will work closely with Alpha Laboratories to ensure the iterative implementation of our prototype design into the current online software.

Faculty Supervisor:

Lennart Nacke

Student:

Katja Rogers;Triskal deHaven

Partner:

Alpha Laboratories

Discipline:

Design

Sector:

Health care and social assistance

University:

University of Waterloo