My Role
During a User-Centered Design (UCD) class at McGill, I spent the semester collaborating on a design prototype that would address user needs and manage knowledge in a health care environment.
- The problem: to design an information system that would retain the tacit knowledge of aging healthcare workers in order to facilitate knowledge transfer of patient information to younger employees.
- We used many UCD research techniques to understand the needs and behaviours of our user group including:
- Ideation brainstorming
- Competitive analysis
- Interviews
- Error analysis
- We used this research to inform our design process through:
- Creation of scenarios and user personas
- Task analysis
- Sketching and storyboarding
- User testing with a low-fi prototype
- Interviewing our testers to discover what improvements could be made
- In the end, we had designed a digital calendar plug-in that tracked the appointments, meetings, and patient consultations of healthcare workers. The calendar asked the user a series of questions about each meeting including who was there (patients, other employees) and what type of meeting it was. It also allowed users to upload any relevant documents and notes and enter any future actions or tasks in their calendar that came out of the meeting.
Key Skills
Project Management and Collaboration – Time management, delegation, and leadership were crucial in completing this huge project in only two and half months. I was able to work with my team to set goals and milestones to ensure our work remained productive. We set up weekly meetings and used collaborative groupware to chat, share sketches and bounce ideas around.
User Needs Evaluation and Research – This is where I developed my user-centered way of thinking. I am now able to take the research techniques and understanding I gained throughout this project and apply it to every job I take on as an information professional. Each time I am stuck or hit a wall in my work, I am able to overcome it by refocusing on my goal – how are people going to use and interact with what I am creating? This always puts me back on track.
Learning Objectives Achieved
- Apply information and communication technology (ICT) concepts to designing, managing, and evaluating information systems.
- Critically evaluate scholarly and professional literature and apply basic research methods.
- Apply management principles and techniques, including those related to project management.
- Analyze information needs and user requirements at individual, organizational, and community levels to provide effective information services.
- Demonstrate communication, problem solving, and decision-making skills in a collaborative environment.
- Explain and appreciate the diverse roles and responsibilities of information professionals in various organizational and societal contexts.
Anna Haywood 