International Journal of Digital Content Technology and its Applications Volume 4, Number 1, February 2010 Medical Information System With Iconic User Interfaces Yucel Batu Salman*, Hong-In Cheng*, Ji Young Kim*, Patrick E. Patterson** Graduate School of Digital Design, Kyungsung University*, Busan, Republic of Korea {batu, hicheng, dalie81}@ks.ac.kr Industrial Engineering, Texas Tech University**, Lubbock, Texas Pat.Patterson@ttu.edu doi: 10.4156/jdcta.vol4.issue1.14 Abstract Healthcare authorities have recognized the potential of information technology (IT) systems to improve the quality of service and provide better patient care. It is not easy to develop software applications that meet quality standards, time pressure, and budget constraints without making a predictive preparation. It is crucial to collect accurate data in a relatively short time while completing the hospital process. Instead of using complex and long forms for record keeping, developing a software system may be beneficial. Better human-computer interfaces can be designed by the participation of the actual system users. In this study, a medical information system was developed for the emergency service data flow to Tablet PCs via Wi-Fi mobile network by implementing user-centered development methodology. The application was tested by actual system users selected from the physicians and nurses. The purpose of this study was to assess the usability of iconic user interfaces in a medical information system by ISO usability standards, and heuristic evaluation. The user reactions were observed while performing with the systems. The system users participated both in the development and evaluation process. Icon design process with users’ participation was also introduced briefly in this paper. It was shown the participatory icon design process is useful and effective. The usability of the web-based applications is improved with visual iconic components on hospital information interfaces. Keywords Usability, medical information system, ISO9241, heuristic evaluation, participatory design, icon. 1. Introduction Medical authorities suggest implementing medical information systems into emergency services with the rapid improvements in software development technologies (Lipoff, 2001). Most of the developed countries encourage the health related organizations to adopt computerized systems (Edwards et al, 2008). Medical information systems should be carefully designed to input and retrieve accurate and reliable data of patients. Continuity of the systems mostly depends on correct and reliable storage of medical data which is extracted from the hospital process. Efficient and usable user interfaces will provide more reliable data to improve the quality of electronic health records (Kushniruk et al., 1997). It is a complex and time-consuming task to design and develop a “usable” software system. Many end users are facing usability problems such as learnability, flexibility and robustness with various kinds of software interfaces for computer applications, web sites or mobile devices (Saade and Otrakji, 2007). In medical informatics, issues of usability have come to the fore with the acceptance and rejection of systems, such as computerized patient records, depending to a large extent on the degree of usability. Although it seems like a difficult task to accomplish, improved usability has the capability of reducing the errors, increasing efficiency and data security, and saving time. Therefore, organizations should be aware of the importance of usable medical information systems fto the improvement of service quality (Edwards et al, 2008). It is beneficial to develop strategies to simplify the integration phase of mobile devices to existing medical information systems. Applications developed for the mobile devices should use special interfaces. Using object-oriented and user-oriented methods will produce more efficient and user-friendly interfaces (Chan, 2002). The primary target should be proving the significant role of developing more usable software to decrease the error rate while entering data by Tablet- PCs. Previous studies have shown the advantages of using mobile devices for data flow in hospital processes (Terry, 2002). In this study, a medical information system for emergency service was developed and evaluated with the actual user’s participation. The system incorporates several applications and functions to track, monitor, 137