Usability practice in medical imaging application development

Abstract

Historically, development of medical imaging applications has focused on solving technical issues for small numbers of expert users. However, their use is now more mainstream and users are no longer willing to tolerate poor performance and usability. In this study we illustrate the application of user centred design methods in a medical imaging applications development company by using a usability comparative study of different regions of interest (ROI) tools. A use case analysis was used to judge usability efficiency and effectiveness of different ROI tools; and a user observation was also carried out which measured the accuracy achieved by these tools. We have found that useful results can be obtained by using these methods. We also generated some concrete suggestions that could be incorporated into future product development. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009.