"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

Scenario and Test Tasks

Creating a scenario is a required and essential element of usability testing. According to Still and Crane (2017), creating scenarios for users provides them with the ability to work within a “fictional yet representative context” (209), which allows them to “operate inside of, representative of the actual use of environment, as they offer feedback” (168). I provided the user with a scenario of a hypothetical situation the user uses as reference, where they needed to perform a series of tasks directly related to the FBH website.

Scenario

You are a 32-year-old single parent, residing in Spokane, Washington, with your 8-year-old son. You just moved to Spokane from California about three months ago and just started a new job as the head housekeeper at the Red Lion Hotel in downtown Spokane. Your son has just started the third grade at Shadle Elementary School. Now, you just received a phone call from the school counselor informing you that your child has been experiencing difficulty staying on task, loss of interest in engaging with his peers, sadness, loss of appetite, and has been experiencing anxiety. Your son has also recently come forward and told his school counselor that he has not been sleeping well and has been offered to smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol with older kids, who meet up after school at Shadle Park. The school counselor has recommended you go to the Frontier Behavioral Health website to seek further services for your child, in order for you to get the help you need.

It is important to note that the language for the tasks was revised after participant five. The tasks were revised to be more scenario specific, in order to avoid any confusion or misunderstanding among individuals. Avoiding confusion or misunderstanding in the language of the written tasks prevents the task failures from being tied to the language I used throughout the study, but suggests that failures are user-related issues associated with the website itself. Revising the language helped to ensure that all participants continued to imagine themselves in that particular situation, to complete the tasks in that state of mind. For instance, task 1 used to read: what are the different types of services that Frontier Behavioral Health offers to youth (please list at least 3)? This did not allow the participant to refer back to the scenario that was read to them and it did not encourage them to place themselves in that hypothetical situation. It was then revised to: You want to do your own research before you inquire about the mental health services provided by Frontier Behavioral Health for your son. Explore the website to find the different types of services that are offered to youth/children (please list at least 3)? Relating the task to the scenario helps situate the participant in the hypothetical situation as they complete the tasks provided to them, to the best of their ability.

Test Tasks

Once the user received the scenario for the usability test, I asked them to complete five tasks. These tasks were specifically selected to reflect a real-life situation based on an adult with a child trying to receive services. The following tasks are:

1. You want to do your own research before you inquire about the mental health services provided by Frontier Behavioral Health for your son. Explore the website to find the different types of services that are offered to youth/children (please list at least 3)
2. You are wanting to get a better idea of how long it will take you to arrive to the nearest Frontier Behavioral Health clinic, so you can plan accordingly in the near future. Explore the website to locate the nearest Frontier Behavioral Clinic location in Spokane County, from where you are right now. Find the directions to the nearest facility.
3. You have now completed your research on the services provided by Frontier Behavioral Health and you have directions to the nearest facility. Next, you wish to find the steps you need to take in order to begin receiving mental health services for your son. Where would you find these steps listed on the website?
4. Your knowledge regarding mental health and common disorders is limited. You want to find material to read, so you can become more educated on such topics. Where on the website could you locate resources to read, regarding mental health and common mental health disorders?
5. You are committed to getting your son the help he needs, but you are concerned about the cost of treatment. Where on the website can you locate the different forms of payment that are accepted at Frontier Behavioral Health?