"User Experiences of Spanish-Speaking Latinos with the Frontier Behavioral Health Website"

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About the Author

Raquel L. Dean holds a B.A. in Psychology and a M.A. in English with an emphasis in Rhetoric and Technical Communication from Eastern Washington University. She currently works for Kalispell Regional Healthcare as a School-based Mental Health Worker and plans to obtain her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in the near future. Her research interests lie in both psychology and technical communication, with topics including: minority mental health, child psychopathology (childhood trauma and anxiety disorders) and evaluating barriers among minorities when accessing and receiving mental health care, by facilitating usability tests to examine information design and observe the users' experience.

Contents

Introduction

Literature Review

Methodology

Test Goals and Objectives

Participants

Scenario and Test Tasks

Metrics

Results

Findings and Discussion

Conclusion

Limitations of Study

Recommendations for Future Research

References

Appendix A: Pre-Test Survey

Appendix B: Recruitment Email

Appendix C: Post-Test Interview

Participants

This section will focus on the participants of the test. This includes the recruitment process, presenting my user profiles, and describes the scenarios and test tasks the users were asked to complete.

Demographics

All demographic information was collected through the pre-test survey (see Appendix A for full survey). All participants are Spanish-speaking and identify themselves as being Latino/a. In this study, there were a total of 13 users (11 females and 2 males.)

Recruitment

During the recruitment process, I had specific criteria for a participant selection. All participants had to be 18 years old or older (legal age to consent), be of Latino/a descent (Mexican, Dominican, Peruvian, Puerto Rican, etc.), have Spanish as their first language, and be able to speak and read in both English and Spanish (so they may understand the test procedures and questions in English). No participants were turned away based on educational levels, technological skills or experiences, or income. I created four user profiles in order to form a representative sample of Latinos for this study: college student, single parent with a child or children, married with a child or children, elder (50+ years or older). I recruited through word-of-mouth and provided an electronic copy of my IRB approved flyer to potential users. I sent a recruitment e-mail to friends and colleagues regarding my thesis project (see appendix B.) Upon agreeing to participate, each participant and I determined which day and time would work best based on our availability. All usability tests took place in the technical communication lab in Patterson Hall (211 D).