Abstract
The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between objective task performance outcomes and subjective usability ratings measured during usability evaluations. Likert-type rating scales are often used to support claims of usability. However, there is no published evidence of there being any correlation with more objective task outcome scores. A meta-analysis of usability study data was performed to compare objective and subjective usability scores. The data used was extracted from two formative and four summative studies of medical devices undertaken between 2011 and 2014. All the participants were observed while using a device and then asked to rate ease of use using a Likert scale. The analysis showed a weak correlation between perceived difficulty and task failure scores (r2 = 0.271, p < 0.001). In conclusion, the results suggest that perceived ease of use is not a robust measure of true usability.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Food and Drug Administration: Applying Human Factors and Usability to Medical Devices. Guidance for Industry, 3rd February 2016
ANSI/AAMI HE75:2009. Human factors engineering – Design of medical devices. Arlington, Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, VA (2009)
US Department of Health and Human Services. Guidance for industry: patient-reported outcome measures: use in medical product development to support labelling claims. http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/Guidances/UCM193282.pdf
Anderson, A.: Human factors and usability in medical devices. http://www.medicaldevicesummit.com/ProductDevelopment/News/Human-Factors-and-Usability-in-Medical-Devices-177.aspx
Johns, R.: Likert items and scales. survey question bank: methods fact sheet 1. http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/media/262829/discover_likertfactsheet.pdf
Brooke, J.: Usability Evaluation in Industry. CRC Press, Taylor and Francis, Boca raton (1996)
Finstad, K.: The usability metric for user experience. J. Interact. Comput. 22, 323–327 (2010)
Christophersen, T., Konradt, U.: Reliability, validity, and sensitivity of a single-item measure of online store usability. J. Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud. 69, 269–280 (2011)
Sorflaten, J.: Clean metrics from quick and dirty assessment: “The SUS”. http://www.humanfactors.com/newsletters/clean_metrics_from_quick_and_dirty_assessment.asp
Fisher, R.J.: Social desirability bias and the validity of indirect questioning. J. Consum. Res. 20, 303–315 (1993)
Sonderegger, A., Sauer, J.: The influence of design aesthetics in usability testing: effects on user performance and perceived usability. J. Appl. Ergonomics 41, 403–410 (2010)
Sedgwick, P.: The Hawthorne effect. http://fhs.mcmaster.ca/anesthesiaresearch/documents/Sedgwick2012TheHawthorneeffect.pdf
ANSI/AAMI/IEC 62366-1:2015. Medical Devices – Part 1: Application of Usability Engineering to Medical Devices. Arlington, Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, VA (2015)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Shortt, N.C., Davis, M., Featherstone, R. (2018). Ease of Use and Medical Devices – Perceptions and Reality. In: Ahram, T., Falcão, C. (eds) Advances in Usability and User Experience. AHFE 2017. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 607. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60492-3_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60492-3_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-60491-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-60492-3
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)