The long and twisting path: an efficiency evaluation of an electronic whiteboard system

Electronic whiteboard systems are becoming increasingly popular as replacements for the dry-erase whiteboards previously used for communication and workflow coordination at Emergency Departments. With this it also becomes increasingly important that these systems do not disrupt or delay the working practices of the departments where they are taken into use. Usability evaluations should therefore be employed as part of developing and implementing these systems. We report on a subset of the results from a larger usability study of a electronic whiteboard and find that there are inefficiencies, which could be mitigated by a relatively simple redesign and thus improve the usability of the system.