Usability Evaluation of an Image-based Pill Identification Application

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To measure the accuracy and usability of an the image-processing based pill identifier application that we have developed. METHODS: The subjects selected were medical residents and nurses. Five nurses and five physicians were randomly assigned to use either an the image-processing based pill identifier application (n=10), or the conventional pill identifier application (n=10). They were instructed to examine 10 pills using the application assigned to them, and searches that took <3 minutes to find candidate drugs were recognized as successes. Among these successful searches, the accuracy was defined to identify the correct names of the drugs and the times needed in the correctly identifications were also measured. After using one application the subjects were instructed to use the other one and repeat the same process. Finally, they answered a questionnaire on the usability of the applications. RESULTS: The average proportion searches completed within 3 minutes was 91% for the the image-processing based pill identifier application, slightly, but not significantly, higher than that for the conventional pill identifier application (85%). The accuracies of the the image-processing based and conventional pill identifier applications were similar, 89% and 83%, respectively. In the usability examination, the the image-processing based pill identifier application yielded higher scores for the desirable, usable, findable and useful qualities than the conventional pill identifier application. CONCLUSION: The the image-processing based pill identifier application application has a similar accuracy to the existing conventional pill identifier application, and its usability was also found to be good.