Kepper Maura M, L'Hotta Allison J, Shato Thembekile, Kwan Bethany M, Glasgow Russell E, Luke Douglas, Graham Andrea K, Baumann Ana A, Brownson Ross C, Morse Brad
Prevention Research Center, Brown School, Washington University in St. Louis, 1 Brookings Dr, St. Louis, MO, 63130, USA.
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of Colorado School of Medicine, 12631 East 17th Ave., Aurora, CO, 80045, USA.
Implement Sci. 2024 Dec 31;19(1):82. doi: 10.1186/s13012-024-01410-7.
Designing for Dissemination and Sustainability (D4DS) principles and methods can support the development of research products (interventions, tools, findings) that match well with the needs and context of the intended audience and setting. D4DS principles and methods are not well-known or used during clinical and public health research; research teams would benefit from applying D4DS. This paper presents the development of a new digital platform for research teams to learn and apply a D4DS process to their work.
A user-centered design (UCD) approach engaged users (n = 14) and an expert panel (n = 6) in an iterative design process from discovery to prototyping and testing. We led five design sessions using Zoom and Figma software over a 5-month period. Users (71% academics; 29% practitioners) participated in at least 2 sessions. Following design sessions, feedback from users was summarized and discussed to generate design decisions. A prototype was then built and heuristically tested with 11 users who were asked to complete multiple tasks within the platform while verbalizing their decision-making using the 'think aloud' procedure. The System Usability Scale (SUS) was administered at the end of each testing session. After refinements to the platform were made, usability was reassessed with 7 of 11 same users to examine changes.
The interactive digital platform (the D4DS Planner) has two main components: 1) the Education Hub (e.g., searchable platform with literature, videos, websites) and 2) the Action Planner. The Action Planner includes 7 interactive steps that walk users through a set of activities to generate a downloadable D4DS action plan for their project. Participants reported that the prototype tool was moderately usable (SUS = 66) but improved following refinements (SUS = 71).
This is a first of its kind tool that supports research teams in learning about and explicitly applying D4DS to their work. The use of this publicly available tool may increase the adoption, impact, and sustainment of a wide range of research products. The use of UCD yielded a tool that is easy to use. This tool's future use and impact will be evaluated with a broader sample of community partners and projects and the tool will continue to be refined and improved.
传播与可持续性设计（D4DS）原则和方法可支持研发与目标受众及环境的需求和背景相匹配的研究产品（干预措施、工具、研究结果）。D4DS原则和方法在临床和公共卫生研究中并不广为人知或得到应用；研究团队若应用D4DS会从中受益。本文介绍了一个新数字平台的开发情况，该平台供研究团队学习并将D4DS流程应用于其工作。
采用以用户为中心的设计（UCD）方法，让用户（n = 14）和一个专家小组（n = 6）参与从发现到原型设计和测试的迭代设计过程。我们在5个月的时间里使用Zoom和Figma软件主持了五次设计会议。用户（71%为学者；29%为从业者）至少参加了2次会议。在设计会议之后，总结并讨论了用户的反馈意见，以做出设计决策。然后构建了一个原型，并对11名用户进行了启发式测试，要求他们在平台内完成多项任务，同时使用“大声思考”程序说出自己的决策过程。每次测试结束时都进行系统可用性量表（SUS）评估。在对平台进行改进后，对11名用户中的7名进行了重新评估，以检查可用性的变化。
交互式数字平台（D4DS规划器）有两个主要组件：1）教育中心（例如，带有文献、视频、网站的可搜索平台）和2）行动规划器。行动规划器包括7个交互式步骤，引导用户完成一系列活动，为其项目生成可下载的D4DS行动计划。参与者报告说，原型工具的可用性一般（SUS = 66），但在改进后有所提高（SUS = 71）。
这是同类工具中的首个工具，可支持研究团队了解并明确将D4DS应用于其工作。使用这个公开可用的工具可能会提高各类研究产品的采用率、影响力和可持续性。采用UCD方法产生了一个易于使用的工具。该工具未来的使用情况和影响将通过更广泛的社区合作伙伴和项目样本进行评估，并且该工具将继续得到完善和改进。
