ABSTRACT
Introduction: library websites are one of the main ways to access to library resources, therefore, they should be desihned according to users' needs to ensure their proper performance. This study aims to evaluate the usability of central libraries websites of Top Iranian Medical Universities and determinate its relationship with webometric ranking
Methods: this descriptive-analytical, cross-sectional study was conducted in 2013 to evaluate the usability of central libraries' websites of Iranian Medical Universities, type I [Tehran, Shahid Beheshti, Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, Mashhad, Ahvaz, Kerman, Mazandaran, Uromia, Kermanshah and Zanjan]. Three evaluators independently examined the websites using Nielsen's usability principles. Then a list of usability problems was identified and classified based on their severity. Then, the correlation between the ranking of the central library websites and the ranking of webometrics was determined. Spss[20] was used to analyse the data
Results: according to the findings, the highest number of problems was related to "flexibility and efficiency of use" and the lowest was related to "error prevention". Based on the severity of identified problems, the highest number of problems were "major" ones. There was no significant correlation between the usability ranking of the central library websites and the webometrics ranking of the same universities
Conclusion: Despite the wide usage and variety of users, library websites interfaces are not of good usability, therefore, it is recommended to to consider standards and principles while designing websites
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Owing to the critical importance of emergency department activities in saving lives, information systems of this department should be free of fault to prevent the incidence of errors. Usability evaluation methods are used to assess this quality measure. Heuristic evaluation is one of the methods which identifies usability problems with minimum amount of time, cost and resources. The objective of this research was to evaluate the usability of emergency department admission subsystem of health information systems in Mashhad University of Medical Sciences
Methods: Using Nielsen's 10 usability principles, three trained evaluators, independent of each other, evaluated the corresponding subsystem and determined the severity of identified problems. All the problems, identified by independent evaluators, were collected in a single list and the mean severity of each problem was calculated
Results: A total of 163 usability problems were identified. The lowest mismatch with usability principles was related to "error prevention" [3 %] and the highest was related to "consistency and standards" [27 %]. The average severity of problems varied from 2.3 [minor problem] concerning "system's visibility" to 2.9 [major problem] concerning "help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors"
Conclusion: Heuristic Evaluation can be used to identify a high number of usability problems related to health information applications in health care systems. If remain unsolved, these problems may waste users' and patients' time, increase errors, reduce data quality, and in general, threaten patient's safety
ABSTRACT
Introduction: With the vast implementation of health information systems, continuous evaluation of these systems, seems to have a key role in the quality improvement of health care provided to patients. The aim of the study was to assess the studies conducted to evaluate health information systems in Iran
Methods: This was a review in which all papers relevant to the research objective were retrieved from SID, Magiran and Iran medex databases, from April 2001 to September 2012. There were 36 out of 727 articles retrieved and then selected as relevant for review by the authors
Results: Questionnaires were used to evaluate the systems in 50 percent of the studies. Questionnaires were distributed among study population in 42 percent of the studies. In 50 percent of the studies the information was collected by means of interviews, observations and the review of patients' documents and records. With the exception of one study, all studies used quantitative methods and were summative
Conclusion: Evaluation tools and methods are required for developing and optimizing information systems. Although various evaluation studies have been conducted in Iran, only a limited number of evaluation tools and methods are used