Case Studies: National Library of Medicine (NLM)

The Client

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is located on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. The Office of Computer and Communications Systems (OCCS) at NLM provides computing and networking services, technical advice, and collaboration in informational sciences in support of the research and management programs offered through NLM. OCCS and Quotient Inc. consultants develop computer-based systems for information retrieval applications, conduct computer science and engineering research and development, and consult and collaborate in the area of advanced electronic office automation facilities. Quotient consultants also support software systems and conduct research and evaluations in usability and universal accessibility of multi-media services.

The Challenge

One primary strategic goal for NLM is to deliver good health information on the World Wide Web. A wide spectrum of medical resource knowledge must be communicated to NLM's many service clients who include persons of varying skills, prerequisite knowledge, geographical location, age and/or disability. NLM on-line services and virtual exhibits for communicating health information need to be intuitive and efficient and must match the public's need. The primary challenge is to provide innovative user experience designs that fit the needs of the NLM client community.

The Solution

Quotient staff developed a funded National Institutes of Health grant proposal for OCCS showcasing usability methods and human-computer interface testing research. The usability work tests and improves designs of NLM applications, especially those where human-computer issues can best be observed and studied with actual user populations. To date, Quotient's work with the OCCS IT team has already resulted in several NLM showcase applications: NIH Senior Health and Local Legends.

Quotient's regular usability project support work for NLM exercises a plethora of methods such as project management, advanced contextual design and structured usability assessments including conducting heuristic reviews and 'Section 508 Accessibility' and Usability Standards compliance reviews for on-line, virtual, and physical exhibits such as NLM's Changing the Face of Medicine exhibit.

The Result

Verified public-user satisfaction with NLM web sites communicating high quality health information
Quotient's usability testing and scientific expertise in human cognitive processing resulted in a variety of non-obvious and intriguing client findings. Web site naming conventions, quality of page content and task-structured information menus, together with easy-to-use and accessible multi-media resources and excellent navigation and function performance are all addressed in Quotient's usability/accessibility work with NLM's public content Web site designs.

For example, Quotient's usability testing work found that the term "local" as a Web site identifier is indeed a highly context dependent designation and as such, not well suited to disambiguate or clarify a national site's mission for casual public users. People tend to make ethnocentric referential assumptions about the "Local Legends" site content. NLM public users are interested in getting regional information for medical resources within geographical proximity to them and they expect that the NLM Web site as a National Organization will provide this to them. In response to this finding, Quotient presented a better site mission statement and the 'Local Legend' Web site was further modified to prominently display physicians organized and user-selectable by State, first, and Medical Specialty, second. These relatively small modifications, in an iterated testing round, produced significant improvements in user satisfaction with the site. First-time site visitors, including disabled persons, can now all easily exercise test tasks and navigation functions.

Typical Quotient usability work examples include:

• Conducting stakeholder interviews and Web site mission audits.
• Conducting and coordinating lab-based, field-based and "remotely linked" usability testing sessions.
• Accomplishing end-user task analyses, contextual inquiry, and task scenario development.
• Analyzing current site visitor demographics and tracking sequence patterns of 'Web trend' data and mine any other available automatic tracking data for descriptive content.
• Integrating all analysis results into actionable and prioritized user interface requirements statements.
• Working with IT team members to define and render interface prototypes based on defined user needs.
• Developing and managing comprehensive usability testing plans for evaluation of user acceptance, task completion and satisfaction and validation of functional requirements.
• Documenting and communicating structured heuristic assessments and usability/accessibility standards evaluations and findings.
• Following usability test findings with modified prototypes and verified design solutions.
• Presenting usability briefings to site sponsors and web management team members, and negotiating and coordinating implementation priorities and schedules with IT teams.

Quotient's usability work at NLM results in better and more robust user interfaces customized for the needs and characteristics of NLM's user community. As such the work serves as a risk mitigation tool for NLM by precluding adverse publicity due to poor functioning or inappropriate Web site content. The Quotient team removes usability barriers and enables NLM to realize its primary strategic goal: communicating quality medical information to the public.

The Insight

Quotient usability and on-site software application work at NLM touches almost all aspects of the client's operational environment.

• Quotient's expertise in human cognition, task modeling, information architecture, and usability test design for large scale government Web applications is second to none.
• Quotient staff has substantial usability testing experience and can deliver both so-called 'discount' usability testing methods which fit well into agile software development processes as well as extend to scientifically recognized and statistically sound protocols involving large numbers of participants.
• Quotient can plan and conduct focus group activities and stakeholder interviews during formative and exploratory stages of e-services development.
• Quotient follows best practices guidelines and industry standards, employs task analytic techniques and gap analysis methods.
• Quotient can manage usability projects for government clients including activities with multiple sub-contractors and specialized 'creative concept' service vendors.
• Quotient consistently delivers projects on time and within budget.
• Quotient hires and retains top-level professionals and provides innovative and agile solutions.
• Quotient usability experts integrate well with software development teams and assure best practices and structured process methodologies.
• Quotient human factors staff and management are committed to complete client satisfaction-the ultimate test of any product or service.