I now count nine sources to utilize alongside my research proposal. My proposal deals with Usability Testing in regards to digital interfaces or new software. My sources vary from those that provide methods in how to conduct Usability testing to those that provide examples of Usability testing experiences.

Finding Subject Terms

I took up an opportunity to become familiar with a new database: ProQuest’s ABI/INFORM Collection. I typed in Usability Testing and received thousands of results. I narrowed down my search by clicking on full text and peer-reviewed documents.  I also narrowed down the timeline to include articles created within the last dozen years.  This still left me with over 6,000 results so I utilized a Boolean and input the words ‘Usability Testing AND Software’ with the advanced search tab. With this I found a very strong example of usability testing coming from BMC Health Services Research where they test a control system for prescription distribution (Fisher et al., 2018). I document it for another look later but I still need to find a new resource using a subject search term.

Using Subject Terms

I clicked on the Abstract/Details tab of the article and find informatics & usability testing subjects. This proved to be really beneficial as I am now seeing  199 results almost exclusively pertaining to actual usability test rather than information about usability.  I select one in which members of the Institute of Nursing within Arkershus University introduced a web-based platform aimed at increasing physical activity in overweight adolescents (Riiser et al., 2013). This study proved to be a quick read and valuable for finding methods in which participates can provide feedback.

Citation Trace

I then looked through the references of the article I just read for opportunities to backwards trace a new resource. I find a resource titled “Usability Testing in Medical Informatics: Cognitive Approaches to Evaluation of Information Systems and User Interfaces.” (Riiser et al., 2013). This article clarifies some terms and defines them in ways relevant to healthcare technology but is not quite what I am looking for. I look at the articles that it has been cited within and find another article where teams conduct a test for healthcare professionals and genome biologist utilizing a newly introduced interface (Shyr et al., 2015). This is more in-line with what I am looking for so I select it as my newest source.  This paper is a great look at usability testing within the workforce and adds in the considerations of the previously used interface as well.

References

Fisher, A. M., Mtonga, T. M., Espino, J. U., Jonkman, L. J., Connor, S. E., Cappella, N. K., & Douglas, G. P. (2018). User-centered design and usability testing of RxMAGIC: A prescription management and general inventory control system for free clinic DISPENSARIES. BMC Health Services Research, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-018-3517-8