Physician- and counselor-tailored hybrid computer interfaces for cancer genetics risk analysis software

During development of the Strang Breast Cancer Risk Evaluator, different computer interfaces were designed, implemented and tested for useability by physicians and genetics counselors during a counseling session. The current BCRE 2.3 implements a hybrid interface, combining modern GUI (graphical user interface) windows, buttons, and menus with a linear, sequence-of-operations chronological progression reminiscent of interfaces prior to the GUI revolution. Although such hybrids are considered by many interface specialists inappropriate to modern broad-spectrum computer applications, vertical market applications, including this one, can capitalize on such hybridization effectively. The hybrid interface provides multiple visual cues and directions to the user as to the next appropriate action, thereby allowing a physician or counselor to concentrate his/her attention on the patient, returning his/her gaze to the screen at sporadic and widely spaced moments. Hybrid interfaces combine specific interface elements--such as triple-scale checkboxes, text and design metaphors, "next step" helper icons, color-coded content, and color and graphically tailored on-screen reports (all of which constitute GUI elements)--with a strictly linear data accrual, approval, calculation, storage and reporting progression (which sequence constitutes a pre-GUI interface design). A first-generation design is presented: a hybrid combining the visual efficiency of GUI-improved interfaces with the practical efficiencies of stream-lined and linear progressions.