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Healio CME: Rebuilt for you
User Experience is not a new concept. Henry Ford and Frederik Taylor practiced the principals in manufacturing more than a century ago. Today, the concept is most closely associated with how we interact with our wired world. While putting the user first is simple enough in theory (who could argue with that?), just spend a few minutes online to see that its practice is far from ubiquitous.
Our decision to apply the science of a user first design strategy to rebuild our Healio Web platform was enthusiastically embraced by all departments and stakeholders. At least until each of us was tested. It has been interesting to watch the metamorphosis – from challenge, to awakening, to resistance, to acceptance, to championing. I’m pleased to say that when we did our research, made data-based decisions and applied community standards, resistance melted away. It does a heart good when in a group faced with a challenging decision someone will shout, “what does the user want?” and the team quickly rallies to a solution.
It was Andrea Gaymon, MEd, UXC, Healio’s chief experience officer, who first adopted our “User First!” mantra. In this guest post she describes our path to integrating UX into our products but, just as importantly, into our culture.
– John C. Carter
Chief Operating Officer, The Wyanoke Group
https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-c-carter-a42aba11/
Twitter: @JohnCCarter
When we first launched our Healio Education Lab more than 7 years ago, the goal was to provide a place where physicians and health care providers could earn CME credit and participate in other types of education. Our community of medical specialists seeking education continued to grow, as did the number of CME providers turning to Healio to host quality education.
It was 3 years ago that we first discussed revamping our CME section. At that time, user experience (UX) was not at the forefront of our thinking. In fact, my position, chief experience officer, did not even exist. At that time, the discussions centered around making the CME section look better, and how it would look was largely based on our own opinions of what we liked or did not like. Adopting a ser focused approach changed all that.
User experience emerges
UX is the experience a person has when using your product. By applying UX principles to product development, our focus at Healio has shifted drastically from making decisions based on our own opinions to examining what our users are doing, and trying to do, when on our website.
Jared Spool, who is well-known in the UX community, suggests that watching users interact with your product is the best way to improve it. For me, my opportunity to watch users came when my UX manager, Jennifer Deal, and I performed live, moderated usability testing of the site. As I sat at the back of an empty ballroom at the HemOnc Today New York meeting with an oncologist and my computer, I experienced many cringe-worthy moments watching him attempt to complete what I had assumed were easy steps to get CME credit.
One such moment was when the physician user was required to give his date of birth to obtain ABIM MOC credits. Would you believe we surfaced a calendar with that day’s date? I had to watch him click back through each calendar year, by month, from 2019 to get to 1962 instead of just being able to type in his date of birth. That mistake got fixed that day, after I shared the usability recordings with our team.
What can we do to make it better?
While the recordings were difficult to watch (Matt Skepner, our senior director of technology, even described them as “sobering”), they were important for us. They got us talking about our users and what we can do to make their experience better. We were able to examine data on how core features were being used, as well as examine customer service data on common pain points. We then inventoried all of the items that were unclear or confusing throughout the steps physicians had to take to obtain CME credits and spoke to more of our physician customers to gain insights into what would help them and make the experience more straightforward. Once everyone on the team was clear on the problems we would be attempting to solve, we were able to start sketching, ideating and eventually prototyping the new product.
Hard work pays off
Our UX, UX Design, IT and Marketing teams have spent 8 months revamping Healio CME. When we tested our first beta, we all were anxious to see and hear the feedback. I am pleased to say that this time, physician testers described the experience as we had hoped — “easy to navigate,” “intuitive to use,” and “easy to find what I want.” But do not just take their word for it. Try it out yourself at Healio CME. And please send me an email (agaymon@healio.com) and tell me what you think of the new experience. We hope you not only continue to take CME courses at Healio CME, but now also enjoy the experience as well.
– Andrea Gaymon, MEd, UXC
Chief Experience Officer, Healio.com
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Disclosures: Carter is Chief Operating Officer of The Wyanoke Group®. Healio®, Healio® Strategic Solutions, Healio® Live and SLACK® Incorporated are wholly owned subsidiaries of The Wyanoke Group®. He has been a SLACK® Incorporated or Wyanoke Group employee since 1982. Along the way he has worked as editor, writer, marketer, product and project developer and manager. Gaymon is the Chief Experience Officer of Healio.com. Gaymon is Chief Experience Office of Healio.com®. She has worked within the Wyanoke Group companies for more than 22 years with roles as senior vice president of Special Services, vice president of compliance and regulatory affairs and director of content development for continuing medical education.