Meet Edward
Why we need Edward
As part of our effort to better know our end users, we ran a quick survey with our client to find out just how many MINAP users own a smartphone, and their willingness to use their personal devices for work. Our client deployed the survey via SurveyMonkey to MINAP’s current user-base, and encouraged them to forward the link around. The survey has been running for about a week now, and will be left open for several more weeks to allow more responses, but 79 responses have been collected so far.
As the questions in the survey primarily involved more technical questions (such as “what brand is your phone/tablet?”), a more in depth commentary will be included in the report associated with this development blog. However, we have included questions such as :
Do you currently use your smartphone/tablet for work-related activities during work hours? (Yes / No)
and
Would you use an app on your smartphone/tablet if it helped supplement your work? (Yes / No)
with a section at the end for freeform comments to allow further feedback.
So far, 72.4% of surveyed users responded No to using their personal devices for work-related activities, but 75.3% answered Yes to the possibility of using an app for supplementing their work. From these two responses alone, it looks like people are willing to use new technology – just not their own. The picture becomes clearer when having a look at the comments left by the users:
We are not allowed to use our phones on wards so not sure how this would work. Our trust is very unlikely to buy a tablet for use by MINAP […] If I had the equipment and an App available, I would be very happy to use it.
and
I would be more than willing to use a smartphone / table for work related activities if it was provided by work. Currently I use a personal iPhone only and would breach confidentiality / clinical governance issues if this was used for work related activities.
and
Any devices used in the workplace would have to be procured by our IM&T Dept.
show obvious concerns with regards to data protection and security, preventing the use of personal devices for work from both a personal and work perspective.
This is a key factor that has convinced us to ensure that our application will not be used in any real-life setting until a proper security audit has been performed. However, from a usability perspective, we need to ensure that users concerned about security are being reminded that the data entered into our mobile app is stored, transmitted, and securely deleted from the device when completing a record.
To help remind us of this issue, we have created Edward – a security conscious 30 year old clinician. Unlike Julie, who was born of feedback from the client, Edward reflects the more privacy-concerned users.
So who is Edward anyway?
- (extremely) tech savvy single 30 year old clinician
- owns a (personal) tablet and smartphone
- enjoys a good work-life balance
- frequent reader of The Guardian
- works in a hospital trust on a tight budget
- loves efficiency
- is professional with his patients, and respects their privacy
- constantly saves his work and is meticulous with organising files
Edward would love to streamline his workflow for entering patients into the MINAP dataset, but is well aware of data privacy laws governing patient data. As such, he begrudgingly enters patients into MINAP on Internet Explorer, but knows full well of the dangers of data leaks. He checks the application privileges on his tablet and smartphone before installing any new apps, and has helped some of his friends remove obnoxious apps from their own devices. He is distrusting of how secure mobile apps are, but can see their potential as time savers at work…
