SISEP eNotes: November 10, 2015

Date Published:

November 20, 2015

November 10, 2015

Improve on Purpose through Usability Testing

Implementation Teams can use Usability Testing to test critical innovation components and implementation processes, and to identify challenges or systems barriers that need to be addressed.

Usability testing can help answer questions such as:

Do the critical components operate as planned?
Are there obstacles to implementing these critical components?
Are these obstacles local or statewide?
What changes need to be made to eliminate these obstacles?

Usability testing is different from research or pilots. Research or ‘pilot’ conditions are typically characterized by special resources and conditions. Usability testing occurs under more typical conditions.

Usability testing makes use of a series of Plan Do Study Act Cycles (PDSA-C)

Usability testing makes use of a series of Plan Do Study Act Cycles (PDSA-C). Small cohorts of participants proactively test the feasibility and impact of a new way of work. The goal is to progressively work out the challenges and improve the processes before scaling up the innovation.

The key to Usability Testing is having a team that:

Plans - drives the improvement planning
Does - engages in the doing
Studies - stops and studies what is working (or not) using data
Acts - identifies needed actions and implements those actions in another cycle with a different small group of participants

By engaging 4 to 5 cycles, we can effectively work out the bugs and improve the experience of those using the innovation or implementation processes.

Get Started

Lesson 6: The PDSA Cycle
This lesson describes the key components in each PDSA Cycle phase and identifies why and when PDSA Cycles are used (10 min, 58 seconds)
AI Hub Module 5, Topic 2: Usability Testing
Definition, rationales, key functions and guidelines for Usability Testing.

Get Better

Activity L6.1: Apply the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) Cycle in your work
The purpose of this activity is to provide you and/or your Team with the “space” to discuss and reflect on the components of the Plan‐Do‐Study‐Act Cycle (PDSA) and apply it to your work.