I got the opportunity to speak at an event held by the Usability Professionals Association and LBi a couple of weeks ago, I was part of a panel on ‘openness of information and communities in Healthcare.’ Also there, were members of the NHS Connecting for Health team, who are developing some amazing interfaces and hardware, including this rather nice tablet.

The tablet has quite an interesting story behind it. Designed to be used by health care workers in hospitals, it has to meet an amazing list of requirements. The initial spec. was drawn up by the Connecting for Health team, and taken round a variety of manufacturers, they said they wanted something that was wipe clean, could be dropped without damage, had a five hour battery life, could be immersed in alcohol for sterilizing, had wifi, secure bluetooth, biometric security, barcode scanner, rf-id scanner, camera and just about everything else, for under £1000. Amazingly they now have the machine.

I spoke briefly on how we need to look beyond simply delivering health information, and understand the barriers to behavioural change that stop people getting the health outcomes they want. I was very pleased when, later in the day, the results of the user research project for the NHS Choices site was presented by another team. These findings broadly vindicated my position, and the fact that we are getting the same findings, on a research project that is a fraction of the size, really supports our approach.

For those interested, click the link for an outline of my talk:

As I see it, it’s not just about delivering information, it’s about the real world actions that come from that information, stopping smoking, changing your diet or going to see the dentist.

Between the information and those actions, there are invariably a number of barriers that we need to help people overcome.

We can do a number of things to help people get over these:

The first thing we can do is to build an understanding of what these barriers are. We can do that with user research.

Then we need to look at the elements of persuasion we can use to help people overcome these barriers. Some of the things that I’ve seen, in the research I’ve been doing, have included:

Reinforcing authority: No one I’ve ever spoken to would change their behaviour on the word of a single website. Rather they seek to validate what’s being said by referencing other sources, for example, other websites, peers or healthcare professionals. We should support this by providing easy access to other sources that will validate our message, building broader networks of influence.

Providing evidence, of other peoples successful outcomes. The internet is an isolating medium, and this can be a problem, as we are all heavily influenced by the actions of those around us. I never cease to be amazed by the persuasive power of a case study, or the voice of a peer, of someone saying that they did this or that and it worked for them.

And finally, we can provide tools to help support peoples commitments. Whether that’s basic tools such as providing directions to a local healthcare centre, or more complex tools to help manage a commitment to change, providing monitoring, metrics and motivation over time.

All of this occurs within social groups, whether online or offline. But not everyone has access to these groups or is willing to join them.

I genuinely believe that we can make a difference by applying these and other lessons to the way we deliver information online.