Jaspers Monique W M
Department of Medical Informatics, Jb-114-2, Academic Medical Center-University of Amsterdam, PO Box 22700, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Int J Med Inform. 2009 May;78(5):340-53. doi: 10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2008.10.002. Epub 2008 Nov 29.
Usability evaluation is now widely recognized as critical to the success of interactive health care applications. However, the broad range of usability inspection and testing methods available may make it difficult to decide on a usability assessment plan. To guide novices in the human-computer interaction field, we provide an overview of the methodological and empirical research available on the three usability inspection and testing methods most often used.
We describe two 'expert-based' and one 'user-based' usability method: (1) the heuristic evaluation, (2) the cognitive walkthrough, and (3) the think aloud.
All three usability evaluation methods are applied in laboratory settings. Heuristic evaluation is a relatively efficient usability evaluation method with a high benefit-cost ratio, but requires high skills and usability experience of the evaluators to produce reliable results. The cognitive walkthrough is a more structured approach than the heuristic evaluation with a stronger focus on the learnability of a computer application. Major drawbacks of the cognitive walkthrough are the required level of detail of task and user background descriptions for an adequate application of the latest version of the technique. The think aloud is a very direct method to gain deep insight in the problems end users encounter in interaction with a system but data analyses is extensive and requires a high level of expertise both in the cognitive ergonomics and in computer system application domain.
Each of the three usability evaluation methods has shown its usefulness, has its own advantages and disadvantages; no single method has revealed any significant results indicating that it is singularly effective in all circumstances. A combination of different techniques that compliment one another should preferably be used as their collective application will be more powerful than applied in isolation. Innovative mobile and automated solutions to support end-user testing have emerged making combined approaches of laboratory, field and remote usability evaluations of new health care applications more feasible.
可用性评估如今已被广泛认为是交互式医疗保健应用成功的关键。然而，可用的可用性检查和测试方法种类繁多，可能难以确定一个可用性评估计划。为了指导人机交互领域的新手，我们概述了关于最常用的三种可用性检查和测试方法的方法学和实证研究。
我们描述了两种“基于专家”和一种“基于用户”的可用性方法：（1）启发式评估，（2）认知走查，以及（3）出声思考法。
所有三种可用性评估方法都应用于实验室环境。启发式评估是一种相对高效的可用性评估方法，效益成本比高，但需要评估人员具备高技能和可用性经验才能产生可靠的结果。认知走查是一种比启发式评估更具结构性的方法，更侧重于计算机应用程序的可学习性。认知走查的主要缺点是为了充分应用该技术的最新版本，需要详细的任务和用户背景描述。出声思考法是一种非常直接的方法，可以深入了解最终用户在与系统交互时遇到的问题，但数据分析广泛，并且在认知工效学和计算机系统应用领域都需要高水平的专业知识。
三种可用性评估方法中的每一种都显示了其有用性，都有其自身的优缺点；没有一种方法显示出任何显著结果表明它在所有情况下都是唯一有效的。最好使用相互补充的不同技术的组合，因为它们的综合应用将比单独应用更强大。支持最终用户测试的创新移动和自动化解决方案已经出现，使得对新医疗保健应用进行实验室、现场和远程可用性评估的组合方法更加可行。
