Bad User Interface Design Can Be Deadly

In his latest Alertbox issue, entitled "Medical Usability: How to Kill Patients Through Bad Design", Jakob Nielsen, one of the world's leading authorities on corporate Web site usability and interface design, points to a paper, entitled "Role of Computerized Physician Order Entry Systems in Facilitating Medication Errors," published in March in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The paper describes how a field study identified twenty-two ways that automated hospital systems, in this case a hospital's order-entry system, which physicians use to specify patient medications, caused patients to get the wrong medicine.

According to Nielsen, "most of these flaws are classic usability problems that have been understood for decades." Although, as Nielsen admits, medical systems have provided many well-documented killer designs, what's less well-known is that usability problems in the medical sector's office automation systems can harm patients just as seriously as machines used for treatment.

Of the twenty-two ways, Nielsen highlights six of general interest.

1. Misleading Default Values.
2. New Commands Not Checked Against Previous Ones.
3. Poor Readability.
4. Memory Overload.
5. Date Description Errors.
6. Overly Complicated Workflow. (Via Robin Good)