At Medic, continuous discovery is not just another research methodology; it is a core part of our commitment to improving care delivery through the Community Health Toolkit (CHT). Recognizing the dynamic nature of our use case and the development of healthcare systems, we’ve embraced a mindset that values ongoing improvement and human-centred design. This mindset permeates every facet of our development process, ensuring that the CHT continually evolves to meet the needs of community health workers, their supervisors, and their communities.
We actively seek input through surveys, interviews, and other observational research methods, allowing us to gain valuable insights into users’ experiences, challenges, and needs. This human-centred approach guides our decision-making and how we improve the CHT’s user interface (UI) and user experience (UX).
Medic’s UX research is dedicated to understanding the needs of patients, families, health workers and their supervisors, in service of building tools that work effectively and are user-accepted. In early October 2023, we travelled to East Africa to immerse ourselves in the experience of community health workers (CHWs) across Kenya and Uganda, and sit with them side-by-side to understand how they use the electronic community health information systems (apps) built with the CHT. In collaboration with our esteemed partners, Living Goods and the Ministries of Health in Kenya and Uganda, our team was all hands on deck, learning about the experiences of CHWs through user interviews, usability testing, and shadowed observational research.
We visited six counties across both countries, speaking to over 80 CHWs and CHW supervisors. Our user interviews gave us valuable insight into their experiences with work planning, errors, and app security. We also received feedback on their pain points, challenges, goals and motivations. We heard several insights that stood out about how CHWs plan their work in addition to the app’s features, such as numbering user contacts based on location and distance to assist with their planning. The insights we heard from these interviews showed us new opportunities and validated some of our assumptions and efforts for the design and development of the CHT.
In addition to user interviews, we also conducted usability testing where we took the CHWs through the concepts of the new navigation. We spoke to various CHWs, who differed in age, technical literacy, and experience using the CHT, aiming to get a fair representation of our users in the sample. CHWs were taken through a series of usability tasks that allowed us to better understand and observe the ease of use of the new navigation, its learnability, and their reactions to the changes. More than 78% of the CHWs we interviewed successfully used the new navigation on the first try, and 96% were able to navigate it on the second try after being shown how to do it just once. Most CHWs stated that although the interface had changed regarding iconography, placement, and menu drawer items, the experience was similar, and they could quickly learn the new UI.
Involving our users throughout the development process, learning about their everyday experience and witnessing the CHT in use in real-time is crucial in ensuring the CHT continues to innovate for a better experience for our end users. It is through activities like these, in person or remotely, that we remain truly human-centred.
We are always on the lookout for feedback! If you work directly with CHWs, and would like to partner with us to enhance the CHT experience through user research, you can reach out to Ziithe (ziithe@medic.org).
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