Pharmacy Phriend

The Multilingual Drug Information Database

Development Process

 

 

 

 

 

Process of Arriving at High Fidelity Prototypes

In order to enhance our low-fidelity prototypes we decided to compare the advantages and disadvantages of both of these low fidelity prototypes to produce a high-fidelity prototype that was a fusion of the benefits of both.  We decided to include the ability to customize font size to cater to our primary audience of middle-aged to elderly individuals.  Persons in these age ranges tend to have failing eyesight, and the option for them to enlarge the font of the Pharmacy Phriend interface to suit their needs was a core component of our implementation.  

We also decided to include the option for users to select the specific details about a drug that are to be displayed in the results screen.   They can customize the results of a drug query to display information about a drug’s storage, dosage, preparation, interactions, general side effects, side effects on pregnant women, and side effects on nursing mothers.  Another feature we decided to incorporate takes account of user misspellings and error while entering drug information.  If the user enters an invalid drug name or a drug name that does not exist in the database, they are provided with a list of similar sounding names from which to select one.  If they do not find the drug they are looking for in this list, they have the option of returning to the previous screen and re-entering the drug name.

We also incorporated several confirmation screens that ask the user to confirm selections that they have made so as to provide informative feedback and provide them with the option of easily correcting mistakes made.  The data flow diagram for Prototype 2 concisely illustrates this data flow process.  In addition, we decided to make our application multi-lingual, so as to appeal to a wider audience.

We initially also wanted to include the ability for professionals to use this website by logging into a separate section of Pharmacy Phriend to obtain a more technical medical dictionary-like description of specific drugs.  Our original plan for our high fidelity prototype was also to cover drugs for a variety of treatments, instead of restricting ourselves to headaches and migraines.  Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we were unable to implement these features. 

                We used the task examples, listed below to determine some of the additional features to add to our applications. It helped us determine what data the user should be allowed customize.

Task Examples and System Requirements

Usability Tests:

Once we had our system established and ready for use, we proceeded with usability tests on a number of test subjects to determine their opinions and suggestions regarding the interface and functionality of our application.

Pre-Test                                   Post-Test and Task LIsts

Results of Usability Tests

We have received valuable and informative feedback regarding our interface as a result of the usability tests.  Users suggested change to the order of screens, additions to the screens, differently sized screens, and other  insightful guidelines to improve our project.  We will take heed of these suggestions and implement them (hopefully by December 2nd).