Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 7.2
Checklist for the review of forms
■
Who is the business owner of the form? If there was no specifi ed
business owner of the form, no one would be responsible for the
integrity of the form, and perhaps more important, anyone could
make changes to the form. These uncontrolled changes result in
incoherence of the form.
■
Were user requirements gathered? Gathering user requirements
during planning for the form should trump managerial decree for
content and structure. User requirements include answers to the
following:
■
Who fi lls out the form?
■
What is the form's purpose?
■
What is the time frame for using the information in the form?
■
Are there duplicate users of the form?
■
What is the structure and fl ow of the form? The structure and fl ow
of the form should comprise a linear progression, upper left to
lower right.
■
Is the form focused? The form should be succinct rather than
wordy.
■
Are there instructions for the form? If there are instructions, they
should be included on a separate section or separate page, rather
than interspersed within the form itself.
■
Was there expert review of the form? Critical review by SMEs can
frequently point out problematic aspects of a form, which should
be addressed before fi nalizing the document.
■
Was there usability testing of the form? It is critical to pilot the
penultimate draft of the form then make revisions in light of the
experiences and criticisms of a sample of end users.
During the review of the form, it became clear that there
were several serious content and formatting issues. When the
form was redesigned, the warehouse staff's trouble fi lling out
the form ended. The problem seems to have been resolved. It
is worth noting that re-training of the warehouse employees
was not required, since training was not identifi ed as the root
cause of the problem, but the employees had to be trained on
the rectifi ed form.
