Heuristic Evaluation
In addition to rethinking radiology workflow to inform the design of a next-generation PACS system, the team wished to immediately improve the current version of Centricity RA-1000. The CMU team spent a few weeks between design and ideation to immerse themselves in the current PACS system and evaluate the design based on Neilsen's set of 10 Usability Heuristics.
The HE exercise kicked off with all six CMU team members performing independent evaluations of the Centricity interface. As each team member examined the Centricity interface, they documented each violation in a Usability Aspect Report (UAR). After consolidating all the individual UARs into a master set, the team members voted on the severity of the problem, which was averaged to determine the final servity rating for each violation.
Overall, 106 heuristic violations were found and documented; 0 catastrophic, 14 major, 68 minor, and 24 cosmetic usability concerns. Additionally, there were 10 instances documented where the heuristics were followed particularly well.
Breakdown of HE UARs