Despite new technologies, the business community remains fixated on traditional ways of displaying data, especially within the healthcare industry. For example, for decades, every patient occupying a hospital bed had an associated patient record, a pen-and-pencil, paper-based record that tracked the patient’s treatment and served as the main conduit of communication among a team of caregivers during the patient’s hospital stay. The patient record contains the nursing flow sheet, where nurses note their observations. Within the patient record this is the nurses’ turf. I’ve participated in several computerisations of the nursing flow sheet, and in these projects a nurse usually leads the product design process by translating the paper-based record to on-screen requirements for data display and system functionality. Whenever a question arises as to the correctness of modelling the new world according to such a strict translation of the old, nerves become raw and concerns of user adoption and acceptance drown out any challenges to this approach: “Nurses understand the flow sheet, so that’s what we need to deliver.”
F. Philip Robin is a practicing lawyer who is also a physician with a long successful record of winning malpractice suits. My company, Electronic Ink, had just begun a project to design yet another nursing flow sheet application, so I asked him about the logic and wisdom of recording data in this fashion, with doctors and nurses quite literally on separate pages. He said that the very design of the patient chart is at the root of his successful record of litigation. He told me that he could examine almost any patient chart and identify a point where communication between caregivers broke down, and he pointed to the nursing flow sheet as a primary culprit. Delivering a computerized version of the old nursing flow sheet is not a design project; it is simply an exercise in delivering technological capability. Of course we can – but should we? When it comes to defining what we really need from a business system, the answer lies beyond an inventory of functions and data – but within a complete understanding of the business – the processes, the information, and the people.
ERP business systems such as SAP and Oracle cost industries thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of pounds, are unpopular with employees who find them cumbersome and difficult to use, and hence require costly training programs.
I believe that business software design, no matter how complex, should be innovative, efficient and intuitive to use. Business systems software should be made to be as easy as driving a car. Small, low-tech (and low-cost) adjustments to existing legacy software/systems can overcome shortfalls, improve performance exponentially while at the same time saving the company a huge amount of money in the short and long term.
Our mantra at Electronic Ink is simple: to make technology easy to use.
The analogy I like best is that of the architect who collaborates between the client and the contractors building the client’s home. One would not go straight to the contractor without first consulting an architect about the needs of a client who wants his or her home to be designed according to specific needs and efficiencies – why does this not apply in the business systems world?
The only time we really see enterprise resource planning (ERP) software reduce the cost of doing business is when designers and technologists collaborate, forging strong links between the product and the people who use it.
Our approach does not simply involve talented designers but also cartographers, linguists, 3D visual specialists, architects, technologists and scientists: psychologists and anthropologists who understand human behaviour. The team not only consider who will be using the business program but how, why and when. We build design models which illustrate user efficiencies. The result is a clear understanding of how technology must support users in order for the business itself to succeed. By designing for not only the business and the technology, but also for the users, companies lower the overall cost of technology and raise productivity – allowing employees to turn their attention from task to goal, and so do their job better – all benefitting the bottom line.
Mistakes in the healthcare industry don’t just cost money they can cost lives. Software systems which save patients medical records are vital and computerizing medical records is sensitive and challenging issue. Medical charts held in electronic formats are often unavailable because the hospital’s software is inadequate. Failures to carefully review lab tests are often blamed on the medical team – but this would be a retrospective analysis – the only way to fairly assess negligence is to apply a prospective review of the patient’s medical charts. The form of a medical chart and the ways in which it presents or omits information, has a profound influence on the decision-making process. Often when a patient’s chart is presented chronologically in the form of serial data in a flow chart, a flawed decision-making process is self-evident.
The Government’s recent decision to delay an expensive business systems project for the NHS may actually be a blessing in disguise. It could be an opportunity to create a much more economical design-based user-centric interface on cumbersome legacy systems.
A study of ERP systems in 2002 by Forrester Research revealed that ‘App user-interface still needs work.’ In other words too many ERP systems still lack the basic feature – a design that makes them easy to use.
American architect Louis Sullivan said ‘Form follows function’. Frank Lloyd Wright maintained this was misunderstood and made the revision ‘Form and function should be one, joined in spiritual union.’
F. Philip Robin is a practicing lawyer who is also a physician with a long successful record of winning malpractice suits. My company, Electronic Ink, had just begun a project to design yet another nursing flow sheet application, so I asked him about the logic and wisdom of recording data in this fashion, with doctors and nurses quite literally on separate pages. He said that the very design of the patient chart is at the root of his successful record of litigation. He told me that he could examine almost any patient chart and identify a point where communication between caregivers broke down, and he pointed to the nursing flow sheet as a primary culprit. Delivering a computerized version of the old nursing flow sheet is not a design project; it is simply an exercise in delivering technological capability. Of course we can – but should we? When it comes to defining what we really need from a business system, the answer lies beyond an inventory of functions and data – but within a complete understanding of the business – the processes, the information, and the people.
ERP business systems such as SAP and Oracle cost industries thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of pounds, are unpopular with employees who find them cumbersome and difficult to use, and hence require costly training programs.
I believe that business software design, no matter how complex, should be innovative, efficient and intuitive to use. Business systems software should be made to be as easy as driving a car. Small, low-tech (and low-cost) adjustments to existing legacy software/systems can overcome shortfalls, improve performance exponentially while at the same time saving the company a huge amount of money in the short and long term.
Our mantra at Electronic Ink is simple: to make technology easy to use.
The analogy I like best is that of the architect who collaborates between the client and the contractors building the client’s home. One would not go straight to the contractor without first consulting an architect about the needs of a client who wants his or her home to be designed according to specific needs and efficiencies – why does this not apply in the business systems world?
The only time we really see enterprise resource planning (ERP) software reduce the cost of doing business is when designers and technologists collaborate, forging strong links between the product and the people who use it.
Our approach does not simply involve talented designers but also cartographers, linguists, 3D visual specialists, architects, technologists and scientists: psychologists and anthropologists who understand human behaviour. The team not only consider who will be using the business program but how, why and when. We build design models which illustrate user efficiencies. The result is a clear understanding of how technology must support users in order for the business itself to succeed. By designing for not only the business and the technology, but also for the users, companies lower the overall cost of technology and raise productivity – allowing employees to turn their attention from task to goal, and so do their job better – all benefitting the bottom line.
Mistakes in the healthcare industry don’t just cost money they can cost lives. Software systems which save patients medical records are vital and computerizing medical records is sensitive and challenging issue. Medical charts held in electronic formats are often unavailable because the hospital’s software is inadequate. Failures to carefully review lab tests are often blamed on the medical team – but this would be a retrospective analysis – the only way to fairly assess negligence is to apply a prospective review of the patient’s medical charts. The form of a medical chart and the ways in which it presents or omits information, has a profound influence on the decision-making process. Often when a patient’s chart is presented chronologically in the form of serial data in a flow chart, a flawed decision-making process is self-evident.
The Government’s recent decision to delay an expensive business systems project for the NHS may actually be a blessing in disguise. It could be an opportunity to create a much more economical design-based user-centric interface on cumbersome legacy systems.
A study of ERP systems in 2002 by Forrester Research revealed that ‘App user-interface still needs work.’ In other words too many ERP systems still lack the basic feature – a design that makes them easy to use.
American architect Louis Sullivan said ‘Form follows function’. Frank Lloyd Wright maintained this was misunderstood and made the revision ‘Form and function should be one, joined in spiritual union.’
