Utrecht Central Station, platform 11, 7:05 hrs. Three ladies and 12 potted daffodils. A bag full of markers, flipover sheet and user scenarios. Typical ingredients for a user research day. Together with Joes Janmaat (intern at Waag) and Helma van Rijn I travelled to Enschede, to the Roessingh revalidation centre to propose a number of scenarios for e-health systems to a group of users.
The question that we wanted to lay before the group of clients, carers and researchers was: “How do you see yourself using this system?” Helma made five system scenarios in a comic strip format. These lively snaphots were a good cause to start an open conversation.
From these talks we also wanted to answer an underlying question: “how can we raise enough trust in this system?”. Trust that the system does what it has to do, but also trust in the sense that you feel yourself supported as a user in your work or revalidation process. And to feel comfortable enough to share your personal information in such a system.
These are difficult questions, without ready made answers. Still we are trying to research this subject, within the framework of the COMMIT/Trusted Healthcare Systems project. In the end, we hope to come up with a list of demands and wishes for e-health systems, that will secure the trust of users in them. Not from the point of a sales strategy, but to make sure that people are going to use these systems, acknowledging the fact that we have to rely more upon ourselves and our direct environment for (medical) care. Naturally, the wishes of users should come at the first place. So our quest continues…
