Getting a second opinion often leads to better outcomes in medicine and research. When developing a product for the medical community, putting users first means more people can benefit. Creating a great research experience is particularly important to the Global Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology Online Network (GIDEON), an evidence-based medicine database that has just completed a major product upgrade.
Over the past year, the GIDEON team collaborated with hundreds of medical scientists, librarians, microbiologists, epidemiologists, health sciences professors, and students from 26 countries to deliver a complete transformation of its robust toolkit.
LISTENING TO THE USERS
Anyone who has ever sought feedback will understand — it takes a lot of courage to share a vision with users and critics. This is especially true in the early stages when concepts are not yet perfect. Being open to critique, however, is key to creating something that will really make a difference in people’s lives.
Aiming to create the next-generation research experience, GIDEON is committed to listening to its Trusted Advisors — a large group of volunteers from all walks of life and all over the world, united by a professional interest in Infectious Diseases and Microbiology.
Trusted Advisors turned out to be an incredibly diverse bunch that included customers as well as people who have never heard of GIDEON before.
INNOVATIVE APPROACH TO COLLECTING FEEDBACK
User feedback guided the process from the earliest prototype to the last day of development. The interface has undergone four iterations of design and three usability testing rounds: alpha 1, alpha 2, and beta releases. Some readers may recognize this process as a standard practice in the gaming industry, which transferred very well to the academic context.
In line with User-Centered Design principles, live testing feedback was collected anonymously, using privacy-protecting tools. In addition to recording hundreds of hours of interaction data for usability analysis, Trusted Advisors submitted their thoughts directly via the interface and pop-up surveys, with some opting-in for further engagement with the GIDEON team.
THE OUTCOME
Not only did this collaborative process completely transformed the research experience on the platform, but it also inspired many new features including:
- Interactive, guided Bayesian analysis-driven decision trees to identify 2000+ pathogens.
- Interactive historical outbreak maps going back to 1348 AD.
- Step-by-Step Diagnosis — an interactive way to help future medical doctors learn the process of diagnosing diseases.
Other features, unique to GIDEON, were significantly enhanced including:
- Dynamic comparison tables for a side-by-side comparison of 360+ infectious diseases, 330+ anti-infective drugs, and 2000+ pathogens
- Epidemiologic data visualization: dynamic charts generation facility
The new interface has just launched, and the feedback so far has been fantastic.
“Having tried and tested each of the modules, GIDEON does a good job in making it quick and easy for a healthcare professional to access accurate and up-to-date information and that is the beauty and success of GIDEON. It remains an outstanding and easy to use, up-to-date resource. Commendable. Well done.” - Dr. Jane Zuckerman, Consultant in Travel Medicine, London, United Kingdom
“The look and feel are great. The product speaks for itself.” - Dr. Monika Oli, Microbiology and Cell Science, University of Florida
"GIDEON really opens up a lot of new and practical ways of teaching. If you don’t know about GIDEON you should definitely look into it!" - Dr. Johnny El-Rady, Microbiology and Genetics, University of South Florida
