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Case Study: Government Services

Responsive design test of nursing home comparison tool

Client

Medicare.gov

Project Characteristics

UX Strategy, Usability Test, Mobile

Industry

Healthcare, Government

Project Description

The UX Strategic Model that was developed for the US Center for Medicare and Medicaid’s Nursing Home Compare (NHC) tool on Medicare.gov, planned a usability test on the responsive design prototype at the Bentley User Experience Center (UXC).  Prior, the UXC created user personas and use cases which showed that people often needed to use the NHC tool on a mobile device when they were with a relative at a doctor’s office.

Project Goals

  • Determine if users could find the needed information on both the desktop and mobile.
  • Understand if responsive design on the smart phone was organized correctly.

Challenges

  • Although straightforward on the desktop, there was some confusion with the navigation on the mobile platform.
  • Lists with details were very long and required the user to scroll vertically before they were able to find the needed information.
  • Sometimes there was so much information in the mobile screen that the user had to scroll horizontally to see everything.

Outcome

Recommendations for responsive design were provided such as:

  • Reduce the number of choices for functions at the deeper menu levels. 
  • Make all phone numbers auto-dial on click.

The development team was interested in iterating the responsive design and making the site better for the user. The recommendations were integrated into the next release of the site design.