Development of and Usability Findings for a Web-based Osteoarthritis Guide

Osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee and hip causes significant loss of quality of life due to pain, reduced mobility and limited ability to perform usual daily activities. OA is a chronic, debilitating condition that affects up to 18 percent of those aged 65 years and over. The traditional approach to treating this condition has been to involve a number of different healthcare providers, such as specialist doctors, general practitioners, nurses, physiotherapists, dieticians, etc. In addition to healthcare provider care, a patient education and OA self-management system (in the form of a web guide) could possibly also assist sufferers to manage their condition. This paper describes the OA web guide we have developed. It covers the functionality of the system using the various user interfaces of the guide. A usability experiment was performed with OA experts and endusers to determine the effectiveness of the system and to learn how to improve such a system. The paper also describes the usability experiment and conveys our findings from the experiment.