Ganesh Bhutkar

Usability Heuristics and Qualitative Indicators for the Usability Evaluation of Touch Screen Ventilator Systems

A ventilator system provides respiratory support to critically ill patients in the Intensive Care Unit. Increasing complexity in the user interface, features and functionalities of ventilator systems can cause medical errors and cost the life of a patient. Therefore, the usability of ventilator systems is most crucial to ensure patient safety. We have evolved a specialized set of heuristics combined with objectively defined usability indicators for the usability evaluation of touch screen based ventilator systems. Our study presents the heuristic evaluation of three touch screen based ventilator systems manufactured by three different companies. The heuristic evaluation has been performed by four different usability evaluators to ensure the reliability of heuristics proposed in this paper. The specialized set of heuristics linked with user interface components and the objectively defined usability indicators are found more reliable in identifying specific usability problems of ventilator systems.

Semiotic analysis combined with usability and ergonomic testing for evaluation of icons in medical user interface

In this research, we have evaluated the medical icons and iconic interfaces of touch screen ventilator systems used in Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Precise communication through iconic interface between ventilator system and medical users like physicians or nurses is critical to avoid medical errors which may cost patients life. We have used Usability Testing, User Survey, Lexical Analysis, Semiotic Analysis, Long Distance Visibility Testing (Ergonomic aspect) in combination for evaluating the medical icons. The usability testing was performed through three icon tests -- Test without Context, Test with Context and Test with Comparison. The lexical analysis along with three dimensional analyses in terms of semantics, syntactics and pragmatics was performed. It is evident that evaluation of medical icons is very different in comparison with icons used in general software applications.

Usability Evaluation Using Specialized Heuristics with Qualitative Indicators for Intrusion Detection System

Network security promises protection of valuable and accessible network resources from viruses, trojans, keyloggers, hijackers and unauthorized access. One of the important subsets of the network security tools is Intrusion Detection System (IDS). It is found that current IDS systems are not easy to use. As a result user has difficulties in judging the quality of the output, i.e. getting efficient alarm and severity level for detected intrusions, information about the detected intrusions as per layers, ports and visitors. Also the problems in installing and configuring the system go unnoticed. Therefore, the usability evaluation is extremely vital to help users in efficient interaction and enhance usage of IDS system. In this paper a specialized set of heuristics combined with objectively defined usability indicators are proposed for the usability evaluation of IDS systems. This study presents the evaluation of specialized set of heuristics based on usability problems and design deficiencies commonly prevalent among IDS systems. This set of specialized heuristics can be used to evaluate various IDS systems or other network security tools with diversified platforms and features.

Usability Model for Medical User Interface of Ventilator System in Intensive Care Unit

A usability model is a hierarchical structure encompassing the key elements such as users, user interface and interaction between them. It is a generic template which is independent of usability evaluation methods and provides flexibility for adaptation in different contexts and domains. In this paper, a usability model for medical user interfaces, especially for ventilator systems in Intensive Care Unit (ICU), is proposed based on Norman’s action-oriented seven-step model to capture a related medical context. A ventilator system is a therapeutic device, which provides a respiratory support to critically-ill patients. Currently, a usability of user interfaces of ventilator systems is evaluated by typical usability evaluation methods from software industry. These evaluation methods miss out important elements in medical context. Therefore, a need for a specialized usability model for medical user interfaces is fulfilled with a proposed usability model encompassing vital elements such as medical user, user interface, ICU environment and time required. This usability model is validated first, through a human work analysis using videos of selected tasks with medical user interfaces and then, with an overview of critical factors affecting medical user interfaces in ICU. In future, a proposed usability model can be integrated with a suitable usability evaluation method for evaluating medical user interfaces to identify related medical usability problems more effectively.

Analysis and design of ICU Knowledge Management System (IKMS) for Indian environment with usability perspective

In this paper, we have proposed ICU Knowledge Management System (IKMS). Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is specialty-nursing unit for critical patients. An IKMS presented in this paper is designed with usability perspective in Indian ICU environment. This design is based on a study about the scope of ergonomic design and usability for ICU through the fieldwork at various hospitals in India. The feedback received from ICU staff, observations about ICU facilities and usage of medical equipment have been vital inputs in design of IKMS. Our research highlights the need to use such knowledge management system supported by ICU knowledgebase to assess the quality standard focusing on ergonomic design and usability of ICU. We feel that hospital administrators, academicians, researchers and equipment manufacturers will also benefit from this system. Therefore, this research work with Indian ICUs and related IKMS will prove to be extremely helpful in assessing and improving the quality and usability standards of ICUs.

Contextual Design of Intelligent Food Carrier in Refrigerator: An Indian Perspective

Refrigerators are used to store food items mainly in food carriers such as plastic boxes, trays or bags. This research paper is focused on Contextual Inquiry (CI) of refrigerators and related contextual design of egg tray. To understand user perspectives about refrigerators, food items, food carriers and related problems, a CI is conducted with 19 home users from 12 households. The CI has provided vital insights into several major aspects of refrigerators, their usage and user interaction. For example, the maximum weight of a food item stored in refrigerator is about 2 Kg. The selected food carrier for implementation is an egg tray. Such intelligent tray is a specially designed food carrier using a load cell for sensing a weight of eggs stored on it. Thus, a contextual design of egg tray helps in providing information about number of eggs stored on a egg tray. In future, this research work will be extended to other food carriers and related mobile App.

An Eye-Free Android Application for Visually Impaired Users

There is an exponential increase of mobile phones all across the globe. Most of the mobile phone users prefer touchscreen mobile phones, which may lack adequate accessibility features. These touchscreen mobile phones are also used by visually impaired users and they face difficulties even with basic functionalities like calling and messaging. In this research paper, an eye-free application (App) is proposed for Android phones. It uses ‘Speech to Text’ and ‘Text to Speech’ converters for calling and messaging functionalities. It has a very simple User Interface (UI) providing ample multimodal feedback, action confirmation and audio help for visually impaired users. In future, it can be extended to add functionalities such as multimedia, gaming, navigation and multi-lingual support.