design for understanding

Areas of Interest

Healthcare

Healthcare is in the process of migrating from paper-based systems to electronic systems. The transition is a challenge and it is as much about cultural change as it is about making sure that information can be transferred between the various computer systems and displayed consistently.

On one hand, these systems are seen as a first step towards de-skilling the workforce because they take over by checking, promting, suggesting, even making decisions. On the other hand, one of the best reasons for using a computer in healthcare is to avoid the very human mistakes like adding or omitting a zero that are nothing more than little slip ups but in the context of healthcare can be fatal. Clinical applications must achieve a balance between the two.

It's easy for some of us to be too trusting of information presented on screen compared with the same information handwritten on paper. This, of course, may turn full circle as a new generation emerge who have not learned to think exclusively at the end of a pencil. They have been exposed to more diverse sources and qualities of electronic information and may thus be more disposed towards questioning information presented by computer systems.

In the wider world of the web, more applications are being developed that encourage us, the patient, to take ownership of our medical records and more actively participate in managing the information within them. Thus begins our journey from subservient patients to informed customers. Once that barrier is down everything changes...

Information Architecture

There's a real art to facing a minefield of interconnected information and uncovering the various underlying structures. We have tools to do this but yes, it's still an art more than it is a science. The real challenge for a usability specialist is to find several structures, understand their relative merit, find the ones that closely matches most users's mental models and then create the structure that supports the users and tasks (and sometimes behaviours) that the system aims to support.

User Centred Design Methodology

We tend to describe design processes using flowcharts and because some parts of the process are repeated, we call them iterative. A user-centred design (UCD) process is a journey and when you are travelling in relatively uncharted territory, is not until you get quite far through your journey that you and your expedition begin to understand the territory. It is often a set of wireframes that causes this shared understanding but in many cases, it happens with the first interactive prototype. The most effective UCD processes are those that plan to allow for this to happen and so that the team can embrace it when it does.

Information Visualisation

Fish-eye views, treemaps, dynamic query filters, hyperbolic browsers and 3D desktops were the new kids on the block when I first got hooked on information visualisation. There was a fascination for warping the software world so that it can better emulate the real world. This explosion of creativity has been tempered and put to good use in many user interfaces so that the essence of those techniques are employed for the usability benefits they bring and less so for their showcase value.

Dynamic query filters, for example, are now pervasive on the web and internet users have an expectation that they can ask sophisticated questions like ' show me all the two bedroom semi-detached houses within 10 miles of here' on the fly and have the results presented as 'small multiples'.

If I dare to think of information visualisation as the non-verbal communication of the software world, it somehow seems that we've only just scratched the surface.

Website Design

A carefully crafted visual design and clear information structure will be effective for both those who visit for a quick overview and those who stay to study the content in detail. I like to keep up to date by designing and implementing the occasional small, flat-file web site. This allows me to be coherent in the latest versions of HTML and CSS and maintain my awareness of accessibility and cross-browser issues. Keeping the numbers down also allows me to keep the quality bar up high, where I like it to be.

About me

Sarah Parker: freelance user experience architect based in the Thames Valley, UK

Contact me