Analysis and improvement of the usability of a tele-rehabilitation platform for hip surgery patients

Abstract

The Tele-Rehabilitation platform for hip surgery allows patients to carry out part of their rehabilitation at home, without the need to travel long distances to a rehabilitation centre. A lack of usability that may prevent effectiveness, efficiency, and the satisfaction of patients, may lead to problems of confusion, error and delay, or even abandonment of the physical therapy. To perform the usability analysis, a set of heuristics were selected relating to aspects such as navigation, visual clarity, coherence, prevention of errors, user guidance, online help and user control. A cognitive walkthrough technique was also applied. With the results of the analysis, the design and implementation of improvements were performed. The web interfaces of the Tele-Rehabilitation platform were evaluated once again and compared with the baseline to ensure there was an improvement in usability