Diagnotes Ease of Use Study

Goal

Evaluate the usability and feature discoverability of the Diagnotes communication platform to identify barriers to adoption and propose design and training solutions that enhance user satisfaction among healthcare professionals.

Outcome

The two-phase usability study uncovered key interface and workflow issues impacting adoption, including low feature awareness and inconsistent navigation. Recommendations improved training methods, simplified message completion workflows, and increased overall usability scores (SUS from 53.3 → 67.5). Findings informed future design priorities and helped shape Diagnotes’ user education initiatives.

Role

UX Researcher

Team

Emily Mueller, Tommy Starks, Wayne Smith, Andy Deddens, Clint Krotzer

Client

Diagnotes, Inc. (via academic partnership)

Tools

Miro

Skills

Usability Testing, Heuristic Evaluation, Task Analysis, Competitive Benchmarking, Survey Design

Project Overview

Diagnotes is a HIPAA-compliant communication platform used by healthcare professionals across IU Health facilities. Our interdisciplinary team conducted a two-phase usability study to evaluate how effectively healthcare staff could use the platform, identify usability pain points, and propose improvements to improve user satisfaction and adoption.

Client Background

Diagnotes replaces traditional paging systems by enabling secure messaging and team collaboration across desktop and mobile platforms. The app supports critical communication for doctors, nurses, and administrators. It is widely used at Riley Hospital for Children, where this study was conducted.

Study Objectives

  • Assess the effectiveness and ease of use of the Diagnotes mobile app.
  • Identify commonly used and underutilized features.
  • Pinpoint usability barriers through direct user observation and survey data.
  • Develop design and training recommendations based on findings.

Methodology

Phase 1: Qualitative Research

  • Conducted 6 moderated usability sessions using think-aloud protocol.
  • Evaluated task completion success, error rates, and user feedback.
  • Applied Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics to evaluate interface design.

    • Phase 2: Quantitative Survey

    • Distributed a usage and familiarity survey to over 100 healthcare providers.
    • Collected 57 responses within 36 hours from diverse roles and experience levels.
    • Measured feature familiarity and performed a System Usability Scale (SUS) assessment.
Think Aloud Protocol
Task Analysis Data
Heuristic Evaluation
Phase 1 Demographics
Phase 2 Demographics
Function Familiarity Evaluation

Competitive Analysis

Compared Diagnotes with two HIPAA-compliant alternatives:

  • OnPage: Emphasizes persistent alerts for critical incidents.
  • Trillian: Offers secure messaging for teams of any size.
    Findings showed Diagnotes offers robust features, but ease of use and discoverability lag behind competitors.
Competitive Analysis

Key Findings

Usability Challenges

  • Feature Awareness: Users were unaware of advanced features like Rooms, group messaging, and completing messages.
  • Navigation Inconsistencies: Critical elements (e.g., menus, navigation bars) were not consistently accessible across pages.
  • Search and Schedule Accuracy: Users often relied on external tools like Amion or called Operators due to difficulty finding accurate on-call schedules.
  • Message Completion Workflow: The icon for completing messages was not intuitive and led to user confusion.

    • SUS Results

    • Phase 1 SUS Score: 53.3 (below acceptable threshold)
    • Phase 2 SUS Score: 67.5 (improved, but still below ideal 70)
    • Indicates moderate usability with clear opportunities for improvement.

Design Recommendations

    Improve Training & Feature Awareness

  • Develop short, in-person training sessions with visual walkthroughs.
  • Deploy “feature champions” at each unit to facilitate learning and collect feedback.
  • Create short, interactive training videos on topics like Rooms, muting conversations, and message completion.

      • Streamline Message Completion

    • Align the workflow with familiar mobile patterns (e.g., swipe to delete or complete).
    • Add text labels to critical icons to improve learnability.

      Enhance Navigation Consistency

    • Ensure the top and bottom navigation bars are persistent across all pages.
    • Replace the Diagnotes logo (used as a menu icon) with a more familiar hamburger icon.

      Refine Room Search

    • Introduce auto-complete and suggestions when users search for Rooms.

      Improve Schedule Reliability

    • Simplify on-call schedule access and clarify provider roles (resident, fellow, attending).
    • Cross-reference with other systems to boost user confidence in listed schedules.

Key Takeaways

This project provided hands-on experience conducting full-cycle usability research—from heuristic evaluation and competitive benchmarking to task analysis and survey reporting. It emphasized the importance of pairing interface improvements with ongoing user education in clinical environments.

Future Opportunities

We recommend scaling the survey and training protocols across other departments and healthcare systems to gather broader insights and strengthen app adoption.

Copyright © 2025 Clint Krotzer