This week was stressful. No way to avoid that because co-op is inherently a stressful process. On the bright side, class was interesting this week. The focus was on user needs and I really appreciated the focus on user needs over solutions. I volunteered at the London Health Sciences Centre during my undergraduate and one of the common things I noticed about the systems in place for physicians and patients (particularly with regards to the electronic health records system) was the lack of user accessibility. There was such a focus on copying the existing standard that itself often fell short of user expectations and user needs, that the end result was a system that most clinicians and patients disliked.

A focus on user needs and a clear identification of the different user groups and their unique needs would have ameliorated many of the problems that plagued the initial roll out. There clearly needs to be more of a focus on user focused design during policy making.

Advertisement