Usability Field Study of Home Health Monitoring Devices Used by Older Adults

The use of telecommunications and home-based medical monitoring devices can provide a ‘medical life-line’ for the chronically ill, disabled and elderly home-bound persons. Since these medical monitoring devices are used by older adults, frequently living alone, in their homes it is critical to study their usability. Field studies in the home of the older adult are used to evaluate differences in the usability for experienced and new users of a home health monitoring device. Semi-structured interviews and video tape analysis of the participants provide the basis for the quantitative and qualitative measures reviewed in this study. The analysis of the qualitative results show high device and input button satisfaction ratings for both the experienced participants and the volunteers. However, the participant comments during the interview and video analysis provide insights into some of the usability challenges of the device buttons.