Abstract
Introduction: NHS digital applications are often assessed against the NHS Digital Technology Assessment
Criteria (DTAC). However, Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) developers often find DTAC itself ‘heavy going’.
One criterion of DTAC is usability and SME developers need guidance on how to meet this criterion. My PhD
is a four-part study to develop such guidance.
Methods: (i) a scoping review of the methods of usability testing, (ii) development of a novel way of
employing a usability scale, dividing it into discrete chunks to prevent “questionnaire fatigue”, (iii)
development of a toolkit, (iv) application of the toolkit with SMEs.
Results: (i) The scoping review identified 133 papers. (ii) The simpler way of administering the usability scale
gave comparable results. (iii) I developed a toolkit that gives guidance on which testing method to employ,
the number of participants, and the types of output. (iv) I have used the toolkit to guide three SMEs (two
more in progress) in testing digital health technologies.
Conclusions: The toolkit will aid SMEs in meeting DTAC criterion for usability. Further research is needed to
refine and validate the toolkit and develop methods for evaluating new types of digital health applications
such as virtual reality and voice interfaces.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Proceedings of the 35th International BCS Human Computer Interaction Conference (HCI 2022) |
| Early online date | Jul 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jul 2022 |
| Event | 35th International BCS Human-Computer Interaction Conference (HCI2022) - Duration: 11 Jul 2022 → 13 Jul 2022 |