New health insurance applications are being promoted by the Obama administration as a major step in improving access to the new health exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). And while we’re happy to see refinements to the original application, we’re left wondering if the administration could do even more.

We applaud efforts to reduce the length of the 21-page application; the new form is broken down into 3 shorter, more manageable applications (you select the form that applies to you based on your marital and employment status). But we think further efforts could really revolutionize the arduous task of filling out health insurance forms.

What’s needed is a closer look at the user experience:

• Where are people getting confused or frustrated?
• How long does it really take to fill out the form correctly?
• How can the design, layout, format, structure, and language be improved?

It’s logical to think that making a long form shorter would make it easier to fill out. But if usability and plain language are left out of the process, users will continue to struggle — adding yet another unnecessary barrier to accessing affordable health care. We would love to see this form (and all forms!) tested with intended users.

We encourage you to take a look at the forms for yourself:

• Individual short form [PDF]
• Individual short form (without financial assistance) [PDF]
• Long form (for families) [PDF]

And check out the Kaiser Health News blog post, which so far is our favorite take on the new form.

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Design thinking is a problem-solving methodology for human-centered innovations, which is a fancy way of saying making things work well for real people. The design thinking method has become popularized by The Institute of Design (d.school) at Stanford — the school has introduced design thinking to a variety of fields including business, medicine, and science.

The design thinking process is composed of 5 iterative steps. The steps can be repeated as many times as needed to achieve a satisfying solution.

Source: http://joeyaquino.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/want-a-crash-course-in-stanfords-design-thinking-here-it-is-for-free-pt-1-empathy/

1. Empathize with users by becoming the user — live their experiences, observe their actions, talk to the users, and hypothesize why they might act on something.
2. Define the problem based on your observations.
3. Ideate by generating possible solutions to the defined problem (brainstorming).
4. Prototype by researching and building working examples of ideas.
5. Test your prototype to see if it can address the original problem you defined.

Go ahead — give it a try!

Relevant links:

• Introduction to Design Thinking
• A Crash Course In Stanford’s Design Thinking
• Apply Design Thinking to Problem-solving [PDF]

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We’re back from this year’s Digital Health Communication Extravaganza (DHCX) in sunny Florida and we’re feeling excited, inspired, and ready to use what we’ve learned!

DHCX is a great place for CommunicateHealth to mix and mingle — in person and on Twitter — with the digital health cream of the crop. Jay Bernhardt, the conference visionary, kicked off the meeting with demographic information about the unique registration list.

215 registered attendees, 5 countries, 29 states, 50% .com, 21% .edu, 13% .org, & 8% .gov represented at @DHCXconf. Wooo hoooo! #dhcx – ‏@alisonpilsner

The 2013 DHCX theme was “Converging Networks.” Talks ranged from social networks to mHealth to gaming to health startups.

Connect on similarities, benefit from differences, that’s where innovation happens.’ @orgnet … LOVE this!!! #dhcx – @CommunicateHlth

With 215 social media and digital health experts tweeting during the conference, the #DHCX Twitter hashtag was the place to be. Here are some of our favorite tweets from the week.

On mHealth:

• Mobile health experiences need to be snackable: simple & quick.#dhcx - @valeriemdaniel
• ‘We need to borrow theories from dynamic fields like physics and engineering with continuous changing data for #mHealth‘ – @audieatienza #dhcx - @MaryAnnPetti
• 18,000 health apps – Massive # of apps – How do you stand out in that crowd? #dhcx - @thulcandrian
• @WebMD‘s top mobile search term in 2012 is pregnancy. People are searching for personal, immediate, private issues on mobile. #dhcx - @kristenking

On social networks, communities, and social media:

• Ideas distribute around networks in the same way that diseases do. – Valdis Krebs #DHCX great quote. - @thulcandrian
• If you’re in #socialmedia, be social. Know your audience. Content is key. Pay attention. Baby steps are ok. @AmyBHeldman #dhcx - @alisonpilsner
• @kdpaine highlights ROI with real world social media examples. What does true #digihealth success look like for you? #dhcx - @SocialBttrfly
• “Online health communities are often used by patients as a starting point (not an endpoint) for making decisions.” – @chiefmaven #dhcx - @eedgerton

On design principles and usability:

• More often than not, poorly design tools contribute to user challenges #ux #dhcx - @CommunicateHlth
• ‘If there’s not value in the product, despite the wow factor – it isn’t going to work.’ #DHCX - @CommunicateHlth
• Jessica Hammer starts by discussing design principles. #Exactly. If you start with visuals, not principles, you’re in trouble. #dhcx - @eedgerton
• “#Mobile first” and “#social first” are great starting points when designing a desktop website. #dhcx – @alisonpilsner

A huge thank you to Jay Bernhardt, the University of Florida, and everyone who was involved with this conference. It was a very special group of thinkers (and doers!) — we will see you next year!

This is what happens when nerds grow up. They become incredible adults who do amazing things. #DHCX - @kristenking

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On October 13 and 14, the inaugural CommunicateHealth Health Literacy Hackathon will challenge participants to create a technology-driven tool to improve how people understand and use health information.

It could be an app, a website, an interactive online tool, a media campaign, or something else! Inspiration and examples will be provided.

Participants will have 1 day to design their tool. Tools don’t need to be fully developed or complete, but presentations should include a plan for how the project could be implemented and launched.

Tools will be judged based on creativity, usability, feasibility, and best use of technology. The first place winner will be awarded $2,000. There will be cash prizes for runners-up.

If you are a:

• Graphic or web designer
• Developer or programmer
• Public health advocate
• Researcher
• Writer
• Person who’s passionate about health 2.0 or new technologies

Then this event is for you!

Participants will compete in teams of 3 to 5 people. You can register as part of a group or as an individual. We’ll match individuals up with a group at the event.

Don’t forget to tweet – use #hack4health to talk about the hackathon, or even find teammates! What are you waiting for? Learn more and register today!

The post CommunicateHealth to Host First-Ever Health Literacy Hackathon! appeared first on CommunicateHealth.

Here are Dr. Weinschenk’s top 10 insights for health communicators:

1. People expect technology to follow the rules of human-to-human interaction.
2. People have mental models about how things will work – different things make sense to different people.
3. Look-and-feel is often people’s first indicator for trust.
4. Fonts matter – people unconsciously equate hard-to-read fonts with hard-to-do tasks.
5. We pay attention to human faces – faces communicate.
6. Peripheral vision is important – don’t put all your critical information front-and-center (central vision doesn’t always sync with the brain).
7. People can only remember and/or deal with 3 to 4 things at a time – not 7, as many people think.
8. 90% of our mental processing is unconscious.
9. Too many choices can lead to no choice at all.
10. People do as little as possible.

What do you think about these points? Leave a comment to let us know!

The post 10 Things Every Health Communicator Needs to Know appeared first on CommunicateHealth.

These were a few of the questions that were explored at the 2012 UPA Boston Conference. UPA 2012 allowed professionals to engage with each other and discuss important topics like behavior change, writing content for the Web, healthcare, and accessibility.

CommunicateHealth staff also discussed evidence-based strategies for writing and designing user-friendly health content (slide show below).

Here are a few of our UPA highlights:

• Aimee, Usability Associate:
  • I am very excited to internally discuss how we can vary the delivery of our formative research results to clients. Carolyn Snyder, Dharmesh Mistry, Eva Kaniasty, Jen McGinn, and Steve Krug all offered unique insight about reporting methods and content.
• Mel, Web Designer:
  • I really enjoyed Adam Connor’s session, “Design Studio: a Method for Idea Generation, Critique, and Iteration.” I can’t wait to start directly engaging with clients and involving them in the problem-solving aspects of design!
• Molly, Creative Director:
  • Fred Abaroa’s talk about presentation skills was engaging and memorable — and lived up to the hype.  Body language and tone can stand out far more than the words you actually say, so using hand gestures, avoiding monotone speech, presenting a positive image, and paying attention to the mood of your audience is key.
• Sarah, Usability Associate:
  • Based on their work on Staples.com, I’m excited to build on card-sorting and labeling studies with tree testing as discussed by Wolf & Harter. This is a great method to validate site organization and labels that have come out of card sorting, without going through costly prototype building and testing.

Thanks to all of the fantastic presenters for a great day!

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This conference is a unique opportunity for CommunicateHealth to highlight the intersection of usability and literacy as it relates to the research, design, and evaluation of the user experience of online products and services. We’re especially excited to present at our session, “Reader-centered Design for Health Communication,” because – unlike most of the conferences we’ve attended in the past – the UPA Boston event is not solely focused on health-related issues. We hope that through our presentation, we’ll bring issues of health literacy to the forefront for professionals from outside the health literacy field.

You can still register to attend this one-day conference. We’re looking forward to attending other sessions on innovative topics like:

• Designing for People who Struggle with Reading and Attention
• Delivering Results: How Do You Report User Research Findings?
• Conducting a Summative Study of EHR Usability

We will also be blogging conference highlights following the event, so make sure to stop by again in the next few weeks to read up on the conference.

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Only in business for three years, Stacy, Xanthi, Sandy and the rest of the CommunicateHealth team have amassed an impressive array of government clients and diverse, successful projects. Starting with only three staff members, three short years later CommunicateHealth has over 20 employees – and revenues have more than quadrupled. In 2011, the company was awarded its first large prime IDIQ contract.

Most importantly, quality and responsiveness to client needs has remained excellent and CommunicateHealth continues to pull down a 95+ rating from clients (Duns & Bradstreet).  Under the co-founders’ direction, CommunicateHealth has won numerous awards for their work on consumer websites and plain language materials development. The entire staff is committed to health literacy and health education in a digital world.

CommunicateHealth helps federal and private sector organizations communicate clearly – via print and interactive media – with consumers. We specialize in plain language writing, content management, user-centered design, and usability testing for health websites. CommunicateHealth’s federal clients include the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

View the announcement from the U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce.

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Social Media Metrics

Scott Shamp, Craig Lefevbre, and Jay Bernhardt gave some great insights into social media metrics:

• Social media is a conversation — not a one-way message. We need to find metrics that measure those conversations.
• While in-depth research takes time and planning, it helps us understand the history of social media activities. We can ask questions. What worked? What didn’t? We don’t always have to be in the “now” of the media stream; taking a moment to look back is important, too.

And we think they’re asking exactly the right questions:

• How do we balance the need for planning and protocols (especially in government work) with the importance of fast deployment and flexible evaluation of social media?
• How can we use social media to get people to take action regarding their health?

What’s Next for Social Media?

Scott Shamp, Amelia Burke, and Craig Lefebvre led a great session on what’s up next for social media. We’ll have our eye on:

• CDC’s effort to change attitudes about vaccination through live Meetups — a great example of using online communities to get real behavior change.

And some food for thought:

• What are the implications of frictionless sharing for health information seekers, which can obviously be very personal. Do our Facebook friends need to know what kind of health information we’re looking for?

Inspiration and Strategies for Digital Health Communication

Kathy Crosby of the FDA, Sue Lucas, and Jonathan Cho helped us find some inspiration and strategies for digital health communication. Two key points:

• Medical organizations are shifting from a “patient” to a “consumer” orientation. While this certainly presents new challenges, can we frame it as an opportunity instead?
• We need to remember that health care providers need easy-to-use tools, too. Both patients and doctors face usability issues.

We also learned of a new initiative from a TEDMED and NCI partnership: cdhw.ideascale.com. Check it out — we’ll be doing the same.

Mobile Health: Flexible and Future-Proof Solutions

The discussion of mobile health led by Larry King and Rich Panzer included some pretty staggering facts:

• Mobile devices will outnumber humans in 2012.
• In a few years, 1 billion HTML 5-enabled phones will be in use.

So what are the implications for health communication? Will web tools dominate apps? Good questions.

They also spoke on responsive web design, which adjusts what’s displayed on-screen depending on the device being used. As believers in user-centered design, that got folks thinking:

• What about responsive web design that also reacts and adapts to the user (e.g., more search scaffolding tools for new users)?
• How do we write and produce responsive and flexible content to facilitate responsive and flexible design?

And From Communicatehealth: Day One’s Poll Results

We asked attendees: Have you searched for health information on your phone this week? The results? 58% said yes!

Sandy Hilfiker shared research and findings on Health Literacy in a Digital Landscape in her poster presentation.

With lots more great speakers to go, we’re looking forward to Day Two.

The post Extreme Digital Health Communication: CommunicateHealth Reports From DHCX appeared first on CommunicateHealth.

Courtesy of Microsoft Office

Dr. Danille Ofri writes about her experience using electronic medical records for the New York Times. After reading her story, we couldn’t help but think how the small investments in user-centered design research would have big payoffs in healthcare quality, and would improve the experience of both patients and providers.

For more on consumer health messaging in health IT, check out our green paper [PDF – 176 KB].

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