I respect all that Jakob Nielsen has done for the world of usability on the web. But I only find his essays (and site) to be really useful about 40% of the time, and this week's entry on Medical Usability is a really good example of that 40% rule.
It's basically a rehash of a JAMA article that covered a study of usability in a hospital order entry system. It'll come to no surprise to most of the readers -- of this blog, at least -- that from a usability angle, this particular system failed miserably. After recapping the study in his own words, Jakob does manage to score some points by describing his efforts to find out more, both on the JAMA site itself and on he site of the University of the original researcher. Bottom line? University = Bad. JAMA = Pretty good.
To me, both Jakob's article and the original study fall into the category of "So, what else is new?" I think if you go into any organization and look at their internal applications, you are going to find a three-ring circus of usability problems. The people that put together these systems almost never take usability into account and the end product shows.
If I want to request a day off, for instance, it takes 11 clicks (and a login) to complete that task. If you are responsible for coding internal HR, Intranet or other support systems, please buy this book, or this book, or this one. Better yet, get all three...read them and then start over.
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