Agile, Easily Applicable, and Useful eHealth Usability Evaluations: Systematic Review and Expert-Validation

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Usability Engineering

Background:

• Traditional usability evaluation methods are time-consuming for rapidly developed electronic health (eHealth) systems.
• There is a growing need for fast, flexible, and cost-effective eHealth usability evaluation methods.
• This study addresses this need by identifying and validating rapidly deployable eHealth usability evaluation methods.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and prioritize eHealth usability evaluation methods suitable for agile, easily applicable, and useful evaluations.
• To provide a validated list of methods for rapid eHealth usability assessments.

Main Methods:

• A systematic iterative approach combining expert knowledge and literature findings.
• Systematic identification and assessment of 43 eHealth usability evaluation methods.
• Semi-structured expert interviews with 10 European usability experts and systematic literature research.

Main Results:

• Ten eHealth usability evaluation methods were recommended for rapid evaluations.
• Remote User Testing, Expert Review, and Rapid Iterative Test and Evaluation Method were the top three recommended methods.
• Eleven methods, including Retrospective Testing, were not recommended for rapid eHealth usability evaluations.

Conclusions:

• A systematic review and expert validation identified rapidly deployable eHealth usability evaluation methods.
• This evidence-based prioritization supports faster usability evaluations for emerging eHealth systems.
• The findings contribute to improving the ease-of-use of eHealth systems.