Applying usability methods to identify health literacy issues: an example using a Personal Health Record

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Health Literacy Studies

Background:

• Consumer health information systems are increasingly prevalent.
• Usability and health literacy significantly influence the value and adoption of these systems.
• Poor usability can hinder accurate use if users cannot understand the information, necessitating a focus on reducing health literacy demands.

Purpose of the Study:

• To modify existing usability evaluation methods to identify health literacy issues within consumer health information systems.
• To investigate the effectiveness of augmented heuristic evaluation and usability testing for uncovering health literacy challenges in a Personal Health Record (PHR).

Main Methods:

• Modified heuristic evaluation, where usability specialists assess a system against usability principles while identifying potential health literacy barriers.
• Modified usability testing, involving representative users interacting with the system to analyze health literacy-related issues post-interaction.

Main Results:

• Several health literacy issues were identified in the Personal Health Record (PHR) through the augmented evaluation methods.
• Specific suggestions for ameliorating the identified health literacy issues were generated.

Conclusions:

• Usability evaluation methods can be successfully enhanced to specifically investigate health literacy issues.
• Applying usability methods with an added focus on health literacy is encouraged to improve user health knowledge, system adoption, and information accuracy.