| Article ID: | iaor201526765 |
| Volume: | 4 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Start Page Number: | 151 |
| End Page Number: | 158 |
| Publication Date: | Jul 2015 |
| Journal: | Health Systems |
| Authors: | Shaw Ryan J, Horvath Monica M, Leonard Dave, Ferranti Jeffrey M, Johnson Constance M |
| Keywords: | computers: information, internet, research, heuristics |
Usability is a critical but often overlooked factor in the design and development of healthcare information technology systems. One system increasingly being leveraged as a research and quality improvement tool is an online research portal that allows self‐service access to electronic health record (EHR) data. We discuss the usability testing of such a portal through a low‐cost usability inspection method: heuristic evaluation. Using heuristic evaluation methods, we identified 20 usability errors: 15.0% (3/20) were cosmetic, 35.0% (7/20) were minor, 40.0% (8/20) were major, and 10.0% (2/20) were catastrophic. Our heuristic evaluation demonstrates an affordable and efficient method to identify and correct a significant number of problems, thus improving the system using limited effort and resources. A user‐friendly environment that follows accepted heuristics for good interface design is essential for ensuring accessibility and usability of data extracted from EHRs for quality improvement and research projects.