In November 2018, the user research phase began.
The research phase of the project, conducted in parallel with the scaffolding of the development project, consisted interviews and diary studies run with staff from both WECCC, and staff working at the Population Health Solutions Lab at Mount Sinai Hospital. Research continued to net actionable results until the end of the project via feedback prompts baked into the application.
The interviews with WECCC & Mount Sinai staff ranged anywhere from 30-70 minutes, and were based on an in-depth discussion guide (and statement of informed consent) developed in-house.
The interviews were transcribed for documentation and review.
The learnings from these interviews were invaluable, as we gained insights into the survey process, intra- and inter-agency communication, tools, and likes & dislikes from individuals in different organizations in contact with different communities.
This lead us to several conclusions:
A diary study was conducted with WECCC staff over the course of two weeks in February 2019.
In the responses, we saw reinforcement of the learnings from the interviews, particularly with OSCAR. We also saw multiple incidents where the office network had technical issues, and where the existing survey tool caused user errors due to a lack of system feedback.
The biggest takeaway from the diary study was the amount of time consumed by manually entering survey data into an unpredictable system.
This lead us to several conclusions:
Once the application was ready for user testing, we enabled a feedback prompt within the application, giving users a direct line to our development team.
This did not yield any major research findings, but did serve to keep us in touch with staff, and allowed us to patch bugs quickly.