Medic’s focused working groups regularly conduct generative and evaluative interviews, shadowing and focused group discussions with CHWs, Supervisors, App Developers, System Admins as well as other caregivers and technical end users to continuously understand how the CHT supports them as well as new opportunities for improvement.
We’ve synthesized the stories we’ve heard into insights below:
Care Teams
In Q1 of 2023, the Care Teams group conducted 7 interviews. We heard about users being unable to easily find what or whom they’re looking for (patients and tasks) as well as about the muting functionality supporting unexpected use cases.
To date, the Care Teams group has conducted 51 interviews and have uncovered the following insights:
| Insight | # of Stories |
|---|---|
| The UI is difficult to navigate | 19 |
| Configuration doesn’t support service delivery needs | 17 |
| Muting is used for unintended purposes that could be better supported by existing functionality | 16 |
| Users can’t easily find who they’re looking for | 13 |
| CHWs can’t access their app due to battery issues | 10 |
| The app takes a long time to load | 10 |
| There are challenges with onboarding and training | 8 |
| CHWs can’t access their app due to insufficient data | 7 |
| CHWs work takes longer due to duplication of data entry | 7 |
| It’s hard to secure sensitive information | 5 |
We’ve also heard stories about environmental and interpersonal factors, syncing and app access as emerging themes.
Allies Team
In Q1 of 2023, the Allies Team group conducted 4 interviews. We heard about the difficulties of purging as well as the difficulties of knowing how to find and fix errors during initial development setup.
To date, the Allies Team group has conducted 21 interviews and have uncovered the following insights:
| Insight | # of Stories |
|---|---|
| It’s difficult to test purging rules without deploying them on production | 13 |
| It’s difficult to find and make sense of errors when setting up the CHT | 9 |
| It’s difficult for app developers to understand key concepts in the CHT | 8 |
| User management lacks automation and self-serve options | 7 |
| It’s difficult to extend the CHT functionality | 5 |
| Testing is error prone due to a lack of clear steps and guidance | 5 |
| It’s difficult to test task rules without deploying them on production | 5 |
| There is not enough guidance or active feedback when building forms | 4 |
| Coding with XLSX is a bad experience | 4 |
| It’s difficult to change hierarchies after launch | 3 |
We’ve also heard stories about printing, dashboards, change management and upgrading as emerging themes.
Many thanks to our partners who have collaborated with us to make these user research activities happen. We look forward to working with others to continue to improve the CHT experience for all its end users. To get involved in these user research activities and to ensure the voices of end users from across all programs and countries are being heard, please reach out to orlowski@medic.org.