Usability Evaluation of a Mobile Ecological Interface Design Application for Diabetes Management

2005 ◽  
Vol 49 (11) ◽  
pp. 1042-1046 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordanna Kwok ◽  
Catherine M. Burns
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Devices ◽  
Interface Design ◽  
Diabetes Management ◽  
Usability Evaluation ◽  
Task Characteristics ◽  
Healthcare Applications ◽  
Ecological Interface Design ◽  
Ecological Interface ◽  
Task Oriented ◽  
Completion Times

Healthcare applications for small-screen mobile devices are becoming increasingly common for medical professionals and patients. Even so, usability issues including navigation and screen clutter remain a challenge. Ecological Interface Design (EID) was used to design a patient-oriented diabetes management display for Java-enabled mobile devices, making it one of the first mobile EID (mEID) applications. This paper presents a usability evaluation of the diabetes management application, which compares the mEID display to a modified taskbased display (mEID+Task). The mEID+Task display integrates functional task characteristics such as frequency and necessity; menu structure, item ordering, item labelling, and input scheme were varied. Results showed that normalised trial completion times were moderately faster in the mEID+Task display than in the mEID display, while no differences were observed in trial completion accuracy. Furthermore, the mEID+Task display received higher preference ratings than the mEID display alone. The findings suggest that the usability of mEID displays can be improved by incorporating a task-oriented approach.

Testing the Impact of Instrumentation Location and Reliability on Ecological Interface Design: Fault Diagnosis Performance

2000 ◽  
Vol 44 (22) ◽  
pp. 591-594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dal Vernon C. Reising ◽  
Penelope M. Sanderson
Keyword(s):  
Interface Design ◽  
Diagnostic Performance ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Recent Criticism ◽  
Minimal Set ◽  
Ecological Interface Design ◽  
Operator Problem ◽  
Ecological Interface ◽  
The Impact

Ecological Interface Design (EID) is a recent philosophy for designing the visual displays of human-machine interfaces. An EID interface displays the higher-order relations and properties of a work domain so that adaptive operator problem solving is better supported for both normal and abnormal system conditions. Previous empirical studies of EID have assumed that the raw data required to derive and communicate the higher-order information would be available and reliable. The present research empirically evaluates the impact of having incomplete data on the effectiveness of an EID interface, compared to a more traditional piping and instrumentation interface. The research also addresses recent criticism directed at previous empirical studies of EID is also addressed. Results suggest that diagnostic performance using an ecological interface is compromised only when the interface is supported by a minimal set of instrumentation. However, an ecological interface supported by maximal instrumentation, on average, leads to the best diagnostic performance.

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