Our clients

User-Centered Design at Virga Jesse Hospital

Human Interface Group was hired by Virga Jesse to assist the Virga Jesse hospital in developing a new user interface for their patient administration system, called POEMA.

The Project

Quote

"Although we did not have a huge budget to spend, Human Interface Group did a great job helping us make a success of our new application. In only three weeks, we learned a lot from them and they inspired us to think in a very user centered way, an approach that will be extremely rewarding for all of our future projects."

Nordine Vandezande
Project Manager
Virga Jesse Hospital
Hasselt

Virga Jesse is a Flemish local hospital with 1800 employees and about € 160 million turnover. Virga Jesse currently uses the 'GIPS'-software to register patients, for tests, for bed management and medical administration. This Oracle Forms software with a character-based user interface has been in use since 1995.

There are various reasons to replace it with a more contemporary client-server application that has a graphical user interface:

The technology is outdated
Development tools have to be standardized
New functionality is needed
Some old functionalities in GIPS have become obsolete

(Click image to enlarge)

The Challenge

Virga Jesse wanted specialists to design the interface of the new registration application, which was to be developed in Java.

User-friendliness was a key issue for the hospital, since the application is not only used by check-in registration personnel (who are frequent users of the system), but also by nurses who use the system less frequently. An intuitive and attractive user interface for a very heterogeneous user group was our challenge.

On top of that there was the 'resistance to change' to deal with. Users were not keen on having a new system to work with. The current GIPS-application is extremely fast to use for experienced users and employees are able to use it without even watching the monitor.

What We Did

Human Interface Group started with a short user and task analysis of the target group to get familiar with the needs and characteristics of the user groups. We observed users using the GIPS system at the registration check in, in the emergency room and at the dispatch. The data we collected enabled us to tailor the new user interface to the tasks, settings and workflows of these different user groups.

After the task analysis, we designed a navigation plan for the new application.

Human Interface Group designed the first sketches on paper and tested the paper mockups in an iterative way with end users. Because of budget issues, no 'real' user tests on the on screen mockup were organized, but our experience and methodological way of working ensured that users were still the center of all design decisions. We chose a Windows XP-like style with an MDI architecture of the windows:

For the new design, we focused on:

A recognizable, 'familiar' user interface which would enable users to quickly learn how to use the new software
Full keyboard navigation and easy to learn shortcuts and accelerators
Useful default values and automation
An ergonomic design that enables discontinuity of use
An intelligent system that anticipates database pollution and corruption