ed-informatics.org

I work at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. UPMC has prioritized IT, and compared with many other academic medical centers, the IT department is fairly well-funded and well-staffed. The central IT umbrella spreads wide, including 16 major hospitals and numerous other facilities. UPMC uses Cerner for an inpatient electronic medical record (EMR) (and for […]

A common technique for prototyping computer screens is to use wireframes. A recent article in UXmatters discusses wireframes, and asks whether wireframe prototypes are used by program designers as a substitute for real collaboration. That’s a good question. But I think this is a better one: is showing wireframes to people a poor substitute for […]

When doing usability testing (see Discount Usability Testing) we tend to act like anthropologists, observing people using computers as if they were savages performing quaint native rituals. In a post in UXmatters, Jim Ross argues that we should also use the anthropological technique of participant observation: basically, going native. Or, in other words, trying to […]

Less is More —Mies van der Rohe In high school English class, many of my generation were forced to study a book about writing known as “Strunk and White.” Compared to many other books we were forced to read, it had many advantages. It was short. It was to-the-point. It was full of pithy sayings, […]

In a February 19 article in the New York Times,  Julie Creswell calls the healthcare IT portion of the 2009 stimulus bill (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009)  ‘a $19 billion government “giveaway”’ resulting from the lobbying of the big HIS vendors. One of the quotes in her article points out the usability limitations […]