Zeitschrift für Hochschuldidaktik Nr. 2000/1
Medicine Study 2000
Alternatives for Learning and Assessment, Teaching and Evaluation
Jens DØRUP, Michael SCHACHT HANSEN & Finn GENESER (Aarhus, Denmark)
Histology Explorer: User-Centred Design of Medical Learning Software
Summary
User-centered design (UCD) is a strategy to consider when constructing software. In UCD, users influence software design from the first steps of development to assure that user-perspectives are constantly reflected in the design process. UCD has shown to effectively increase usability, usefulness and user satisfaction of new software. Frequent interaction between developers and users and analyses of how users react to the software is used to adapt the software to user needs and behavior in an iterative process.
During development of a histology learn-ing tool: Histology Explorer, USD was implemented though regular reviewing of preliminary versions of the program against a group of medical students and teachers. Programming was done by a medical student with specific expertise in the software used.
The interface that evolved was very simple and resulted in implementation of the following general principles:
- Transparent content organization
- Users should always know how to navigate.
- The amount of structural elements of the interface should be kept to a minimum.
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