Team Role

I joined the Master's Program in Interaction Design and Information Architecture in September 2020. It was a great experience working closely with classmates with different backgrounds and experiences on this project for the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) system.

Project Goal

To establish a trustworthy site plan for the users of the VHA UX guide with an organized labeled system that will allow the users to preform their tasts in service to veterans.

Story of the VHA UX Guide

The primary goal of the User Experience Guide for the Veterans Health Administration system is to assist VHA project teams, specifically Clinical Application Coordinators (CAC) and other VHA center staff, in implementing best practices of User Experience and Human Factors Engineering in their clinical workflows

What is the VHA UX Guide?

The only educational resource that focuses on human-centered design user experience techniques for Clinical Application Coordinators (CACs) across VA Hospitals to advance the standard of care through the adoption of human-centered design during a time when mental and physical health need more attentive care than ever.

We Came Up With The Following Competitors:

Usability.gov
18F User Experience Design Guide
Coursera
General Assembly

Research Methodology

Develop site plan/information architechture draft
Recruit participants with UX backrounds
Hybrid card sorting sessions
Post test questionnaires
Review Findings
Create presentations

VHA UX SWOT Analysis

Strengths

Tailored specifically to VHA CACs and clinical use cases.
Content organized in dedicated ‘Phases’ per Process from Ben Allegretti Consulting.
Free access for VA employees.
Multimedia – contains word documents, images and video files.
Repository format allows for asynchronous access.
Consistent branding throughout the guide – all VHA UX learning materials are clearly a part of the ‘VHA UX’ repository.

Weakness

Content is not finalized, many documents are either ‘in progress’, ‘ready review’, or missing from the final UX Guide Folder Structure.
Current file repository format isn’t conducive to a friendly user experience. More of a ‘resources list’ than an interactive guide or learning platform.
No human-interaction between an instructor and the user.
As-written, the VHA UX Guide is a guide, there is currently no way to collect feedback or assess if CACs are implementing what they learn.

Opportunities

Finalize all material and port to a UI that isn’t a file repository.
Incorporate personnel training sessions with th new learning solution.
VHA specific use case allows for more focus on VA/Federal specific topics like 508 compliance.
Awareness of UX as a practice and its benefits is growing, more users are more likely to take interest.

Threat

If content isn’t finalized, users might get frustrated and confused, and turn to more complete UX learning-resources.
If content isn’t finalized, users might get frustrated and confused, and turn to more complete UX learning-resources.
Continuously updating and maintaining the UX learning material may incur additional costs and time.
CACs might read the UX guide, and still incorrectly implement UX practices.

❮ ❯

Meet Oliver

Oliver Brown

33 years old
Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing
Clinical Research Certificate
Clinical Application
Coordinator

Oliver

Is a certified nurse practitioner with five years of experience. Recently, he started in a new position serving as Coordinator of the Electronic Health Record package and all associated software modules and systems. Oliver discovered his perfect career path in this role. He feels like he is still helping people from a different perspective and has more time to spend with his newborn.

Goals

Find affordable resources and tools that meet all of his continuing education requirements and improve his performance. He wants to become an expert in his field.

Frustrations

There is not a lot of free training. He likes to know the latest about new software and methodologies, but he doesn’t have the time to research.

Oliver Scenario

Oliver has an important meeting with his team next week. The purpose of the meeting is to show the data collected from an information flow analysis and define areas of potential risks. He is relatively new to the department and is looking for ways to get noticed. He decided to do some research on the subject to prepare himself to make a substantial contribution to the analysis.
Oliver recalls a conversation in the office about the VHA UX Guide and thought he might find the sources he needs there. He has not used the guide before, but his peers hardly recommended it. He wants to explore the site and search for similar methods he can use to analyze data.

The Journey Map

Explore

Explore the site

“Where should I start?”

Try to locate contents

“There is alot of information”

Focus

Filter the information to focus on the content that matches the search objectives

“I hope this catergory has what I need”

Get Results

“This seems easy”

Evaluate

Assess if this result is the best result

“Is this the best for me?”

Collect and prepare the final results to be anaylzed

“I think I got what I need”

Experience

Collect and prepare the final results to be analyzed

“This is good”

Asess if this result is the best result

“I don’t have time to continue reading now”

Explore the Wireframe Proposal

Short Term Recommendations

All written material should be finalized and reviewed - there is still missing material.
Conduct a card sorting activity with actual Clinical Application Coordinators to get an understanding of their mental model.
Design for 508 compliance and for those with disabilities. Utilize alt tags for screen readers in page elements, and color schemes that are in sync with the VA style guide while still providing enough color contrast for individuals who might have some form of vision impairment.
Use plain language whenever possible to maximize ease of use.
Move away from SharePoint, build a dedicated website and UI.

Peer-to-Peer Learning: Recommendations for the Future

Many enterprises are moving towards a new paradigm of ‘democratized learning’. We give users the platform and guides, we give them instructors, but we also want to empower them to learn on their own, become subject matter experts, and be able to teach others. Foster stronger communication within and between VHA centers using ‘peer coaching’.
Give the users ability to create their learning paths, compile links into ‘courses’ or lesson plans.
We want users to give feedback on the material they learn, and perhaps source their own content. Mapping UX concepts to real world VHA use cases is a great example.