Technological advancements and digitalization have also affected the way we access healthcare services, communicate with healthcare professionals and store health records. One key element of these advancements involves the development of electronic health records, which simplify access and at the same time encourage their use as patient portals.
Although their use has many advantages, not everyone finds them easy to use. For the elderly, who are expected to use these portals in a larger capacity than the general population, digital access means learning completely new requirements, that they may not be able to or even want to meet. Health data requires a certain level of healthcare literacy, but complications can arise even with a straightforward user interface. It can be very complex and impenetrable for the elderly, which indicates that as a group, they are often overlooked when it comes to development of digital solutions.
To identify the issues, that older users face when using healthcare portals, we made a plan for an evaluation of a user interface of the IRIS portal. We carried out the evaluation on the portal using eye tracking technology as well as collecting personal experiences and opinions from users. Based on their feedback, we prepared a proposal for upgrading the portal and reevaluated the way it's used and collected the opinions of the elderly.
The findings showed that small changes are enough to have a big impact.
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