One of my most popular well searched posts on this blog is a post on WVU’s PRT.

Since writing this over three years ago, I’ve noticed new improvements to the service and new capabilities – and it’s only fair that I share the good news!

Web Presence: Making it easier to find out if the PRT is available.

1. The WVU transportation site Features PRT status first thing on their home page in a prominent location.
2. Even better is WVU’s mobile website, which has it’s own page dedicated to PRT Status (preview it in your browser)- this makes finding details and getting up-to-date notifications on the PRT even easier for someone who is out on the go.

WeGO Initiative:

1. In addition to the PRT, the campus now has several Zip Car parking location near student housing – making having a car on campus less of a need. need to make a quick run for art supplies? Then check out zip car!
2. Traveling in from out of town? WVU now provides students with Zimride accounts, enabling commuters to team up to lighten the traffic on the roads.
3. The parking & transportation website also now clearly provides alternatives

So it’s come a long way in the last few years – and I’m proud of my Alma mater for tackling these well voiced bugs. I think it’s great to see the zip cars on campus and taking advantage of some of the neat tools out there. I would still like to see more initiatives – one of my favorite ways to commute from Downtown to Evansdale would be the rail- could some kind of “Capital BikeShare-esq” program? Or what if Morgantown became the next city to embrace aps like “Parking Panda” – allowing students and residents with parking to help each other out?

One thing that our family had to rely on where amazing friends and family to get us through the very trying time we had with cancer. I can say that there is no better cure than the love, time and energy they gave us. And although my first post on the experience was maybe more negative, I can say that a lot of good came from our families experience with cancer.

From hot meals left on our door step, to cards stuffed full of funny jokes, to waking up to the sound of a lawn mower… then realizing it was in your yard, we were always taken care of.

We had the entire community on our side, however, my parents are both very independent people – and when fall came my mother had to return to teaching her college courses. They felt that they could not ask their loved ones to do any more than they already had. So we had to find someone to assist my dad while mom was away.

For obvious reasons, this is not a very easy thing to do. For one you are leaving your home and your loved one in someone elses hands… but as we learned, this became a VERY hard thing to do. This could merely be a geographic issue (meaning, we are from a small town), but there were only a handful of individuals available – and those who do that line of work – were already busy. Our hospice nurse provided us with a list – but all of these people were too busy to take on one more family.

There was little in the way of finding assistance.  Thankfully, with my mother being a professor of nursing, she knew plenty of colleagues to call, and we found a wonderful home aid to be with my dad. However, based off our search, we learned there was a fairly high demand for these individuals. It seems as though (again, maybe only it’s in our area) – there is a need for a network of trusted individuals to assist people with finding in home assistance (aside from hospice). This leads me to wonder what type of organization should take this service network on? And how would it work? What would it look like?

My father passed away just a year ago this past month. Despite it being difficult to discuss – I still think a lot about our expierences as patients (or family members of a patient) and how it ties back to providing a service… and how too often – many services are not very well thought out.

My father had just been to the doctor for a routine follow up visit for a manageable illness. He had been going to a leading medical center out of state – my parents would drive 3 hours to see the specialist, take some tests, then have to wait nearly half a day for the doctor to be able to sit and tell them about the results. While I have many thoughts on this factoid- one of the things that still astounds me to this day is the way they told him about his cancer.

A phone call out of the blue… a follow up call from a test.

Being a reasonable person, I understand we were out of state patients, and to ask us to drive 3 hours to follow up may have been a lot. But the call was placed in the middle of the day, when only my dad was home. Leaving him alone to deal with the news, leaving him alone to wonder what was going to happen.

In addition, the individual who delivered the call, did not know very much the stage of dad’s cancer. This person was reassuring and actually gave him this incredible hope about the treatments offered at the facility and that it was very curable cancer. But in actuality, they found out when they returned to the specialist was that he was indeed dying, no chance for a cure at all, just the possibility of buying time.

Top notch medical centers who are experts specific medicinal areas see patients who drive long distances all the time. They should have a procedure in place for contacting patients and delivering news. Perhaps instead of just calling at a random time- set up a time to call the patient – like an appointment via phone. Tell them that their doctor would like to speak to them about their test results and would like to schedule a time to discuss them. Suggest that if they have someone who would normally go to the doctor with them to be there at that time. This way the doctor can look at the test results and give them the proper information. Depending on the technology available from the patients end, they could share a computer screen, the doctor could go over test results, facts, and options. Perhaps the clinics could ensure that all out of state patients have some kind of means to connect with them electronically – I’m sure there’s an ap for that… (BTW, I’m sure someone reading this is going to scream HIPAA violation on something in post) but this is the truth – think about your patient.

Think about the fact that their life is about to change with the news that you are about to give them- it’s a great responsibility to deliver such news. And probably an action that could stand to have a lot of thought placed in it.

Sometimes when conducting user testing – your user does not always give you the answer you want. Recently I put together a tree test for a client. The client took the test to the user base and when reporting back the results, she informed me that the users were getting one question consistently wrong.

We asked users where they would go to find forms related to upcoming training events. Currently, they are housed with the division that creates them – but all of the users went to the training page to find the forms.

Tree testing helps us see where our ideas or assumptions about the navigation and the content are right and wrong. It helps us see where users would go to find the information they need. It provides us with a quick way to test our ideas and validate new ones.

I’ve often asked other colleagues and user experience designers how to convince clients to invest in user centered research. From my experience, this is what I’ve found to work best:

1- Never hide it – tell the client up front about the design process and all the phases – if they don’t buy into it at first, be patient – leave it in your project definition, mention it when asked to implement a new design, when the client questions the way something is in the design, remind them about the value of getting user input – eventually they’ll pick up on it.

2- Think quick wins: start with something fast and cheap. Can you do an in-house observation of someone who has never used the product or new design? Share what you learn – ask if you can do more… if you can’t now – bring it up next time.

3- Share. Share. Share. Attended workshops, conferences, share what you’ve learned. Bring in case studies – share YouTube videos on processes, eventually, your enthusiasm will wear down on them or something will catch their eye.