Multi-modal Interaction in Biomedicine - Ambient Intelligence for Scientific Discovery - page 192

the daily working context of two focus user groups of the VRE: radiologists and
vascular surgeons. Seven interventional radiologists and seven vascular surgeons
from nine Dutch hospitals participated in the experiment on user profiling.

4.1 Methodology

The most effective way to find usability problems of the VRE is the extensive
involvement of users in prototyping and development of the system. However,
clinicians are not unlimitedly available for extensive design sessions and repeated
laboratory testing. The advantage of contextual analysis [3] applied is in studying
users' tasks and preferences in a real life environment without having to rely on
self-reporting methods.
The combination of exploratory interviews and observation sessions leads to
a better understanding of tasks and processes surrounding the diagnosis and
treatment planning for vascular disorders. It also permits us to get a better view
to the possible place of the VRE system in a real life medical environment.
Observations have been carried out to gain detailed understanding of tasks
and the context in which each task is performed. The whole trajectory of tasks
related to diagnosis and treatment planning has been observed in a manner
resembling contextual inquiry by an individual researcher [10]. Forms containing
data recorded and reported by clinicians in certain assessment tasks have been
gathered. Notes and photographs have been taken when possible and permitted.
The interviews served as a preparation for observation sessions. During se-
ries of 'one-to-one' interviews the subjects have been asked about their daily
activities related to diagnosis, treatment planning and surgical interventions.
Working processes and information used in these processes have been identified.
Current bottlenecks and high-risk elements of each task have been assessed to
gain understanding when the system's support might be useful. The usage of 3D
data by subjects has been evaluated. Expectations concerning the improvement
of existing medical tools have been gathered. The subjects' attitudes towards
different projection modalities have been analyzed.
To summarise, the user profiling permits us to:

- Identify the processes related to the tasks of diagnosis and planning inter-
ventions for vascular disorders and specify the place of the VRE in respect
to these processes;
- Classify potential users of the VRE and analyze their attitudes towards VR
and desktop projection modalities.

The next subsections present these findings.

4.2 Task Analysis

Diagnosis starts when a patient comes to the First Health Care, where a therapist
confirms that a patient is suffering from a vascular disorder. At this early stage
information processed by a therapist may vary from a story told by a patient to
a complete scan data set made earlier.