Heuristic evaluation of health Registries Developed in Tabriz University of Medical Sciences

Abstract

Abstract

Background Health registry systems provide important resources for biomedical researches, also are a useful tool for monitoring public health and improving the quality of care. Therefore, having a strong and usable user interface is necessary to increase motivation in users. Heuristic evaluation is one of the best and most cost-effective ways to evaluate the user interface of these systems.

Materials and methods Three of health information technology experts employed heuristic evaluation method to evaluate ARAS and CVT registries which were developed in Tabriz University of Medical Science. This study was done from July to February 2019. In this study experts evaluated user interface of registries according to Xerox checklist which is derived from Nielsens heuristics.

Results This study identified 130 and 124 problems in ARAS and CVT systems with overall percentages of 44.67% and 42.61% in general. In ARAS system, the highest number of errors or problems concerned the principle of "Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors" (95.23%) and the lowest number was related to the principle of "Aesthetic and minimalist design" (8.33%), while in CVT system the highest number The problem concerned the principle of "Help and documentation" (86.36%) and the lowest number concerned "Match between the system and the real world" (13.88%).

Conclusion Evaluating the functionality of health registry systems seems to be necessary in order to increase the quality of user interaction with these systems and reduce potential registry errors, and beside increase the reliability of outputs of these systems for research purposes or decision-making at the management level.