A presentation for use at information kiosks by the patients at the health centre.

A02 - Analysis

Introduction

I intend to create a presentation for use at information kiosks by the patients at the health centre. This is going to be situated just outside the door of the health centre, which is used mainly during the hours when the centre is not going to be open. It could also be used when the centre is open though. It is going to be a touch screen device and will inform people about the different aspects of the centre.

Analysis

End Users:

The organisation I am working for is the Beacon Health Centre. It is a centre based on a group practice with six doctors and 11300 patients on role. There are also practice nurses, a physiotherapist and a psychotherapist. They provide a NHS service, which offers many different extra clinics and help. They have an Emergency Doctor and they also have midwives and counselling services available. They have disabled access for all the patients and they do not allow smoking or eating in the building. Their customers are the people who need the help.

The organisation promotes itself mostly by word of mouth of the customers. This is a good method of promotion because it can bring more people to them and they will easily get a bad reputation. But if something goes wrong, they will easily get the bad reputation. This could also reduce the amount of funding that they receive because their patient role number may decrease. They also advertise themselves using posters, which are specifically placed around the local area. These explain the good points of the health centre which may attract vulnerable people to the health centre. They also advertise via a website which has been set up. This is a good method of promotion but can by no means be their only method. A large majority of their customers will not have access to the Internet so this may minimise their target market. They also put adverts out in the local newspapers, which promotes this. This would help with keeping their number of patients up. They sometimes put their name in a leaflet, which is talking about a specific health problem. This explains to people that there is plenty of help there; they only have to ask for it.

End User Needs (Requirements):

The health centre wants my company to create a new logo and touch screen system, which will put forward vital information. The logo needs to be relevant and suitable to their health centre and the touch screen system will need to have a slideshow presentation to use at an information kiosk when the centre is closed. The slideshow is being made for the customers, so it is what they want that should be put into the presentation. After asking a number of people in a mock-up interview, these were the things which they thought ...

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End User Needs (Requirements):

The information that the slideshow needs to present are:

Opening Times
Logo
Different services on offer
The heath centre’s policies on several subjects (e.g. smoking, eating & drinking)
Emergency Doctor details
Information on the different clinics on offer
Disabled information
Contact details

The different aspects that need to be thought through when designing this are:

Colour
Layout
Features
How regularly the page is updated
How appealing it will look
The target audience
Cost
Images
How easy to read
Visual impaired users

Input/Storage/Output:

DATA TO BE INPUT:

The input is normally information which has been captured or drawn up. The information to be put in the presentation will be decided by workers at the health centre. They will also have to make sure the information is correct before it is put onto the computer system. The things that will be put into the Presentation are:

Pictures from the Internet
Staff details
NHS logo
Opening times
Clinics information
Emergency Doctor
Policies
Contact information
Map [Location]

DATA TO BE STORED:

The things that will need to be stored for the future could be a survey, which has been conducted about the presentation, which could be used to improve it in the future. The information being stored will be held on Hard Drives or Discs (RAM). The things that will be stored are:

Pictures from the Internet
Staff details
NHS logo
Opening times
Clinics information
Emergency Doctor
Policies
Contact information
Map [Location]

OUTPUT PRODUCED:

The end result can be seen as a presentation that includes information about the health centre. It will also feature the logo. It will be on a screen monitor. All the information that will be shown are:

Pictures from the Internet
Staff details
NHS logo
Opening times
Clinics information
Emergency Doctor
Policies
Contact information
Map [Location]

Alternative Solution:

If the presentation could not be made, another solution would have to be drawn up.

This could be a leaflet which would be distributed and left at the health centre for people to read. Although this would be a good idea as it would be very informative, and they could be taken with the reader for future reference, I

The text may be too small for lots of people to see. Also, lots of people ignore leaflets and throw them away, which would mean the health centre would have to produce thousands, which could be quite costly. Also, leaflets can sometimes just be too informative, and people don’t like reading them. I don’t think it would be suitable for the reader’s because many would be unable to read small print, and it would be too informative for them to read.

There could also be open days where customers come along to find out about the health centre. This would be used to inform people about the workings of the health centre. Doing this would be economically free apart from the workers would have to put in a lot of time and effort which could use up resources needed for that days patients. If the health centre was to be full of questioning customers, the everyday running of the centre may not be able to commence, causing inconvenience for needy patients. This would not really be suitable because information needed to be presented could only be spoken by word of mouth, and lots of guests wouldn’t remember these e.g. opening times. This method would only really promote the health centre, it wouldn’t really tell existing customers about the crucial information of the health centre. But I would be accessible to everybody who was able to get to the health centre, which would include people who are hard of hearing or sight-impaired.

Another way to inform people about the vital information of the health centre is to produce a notice board, where paper could be hung to be shown to the public. This would be made and placed outside the health centre, and would be kept up-to-date by the staff at the health centre e.g. the reception workers. It would work well because the information in it could be kept up-to-date. But notice boards tend to get tatty and can start to look old and uncared for. Also, a notice board can only be seen there, whereas a presentation could later be transferred to the Internet to be seen anywhere. A notice board would be very easy to use and accessible because any materials on it could be printed in larger print, produced in different languages or details of where different versions could be obtained. This would suit lots more people.

Any other paper methods could be completed by hand rather than on the computer. This would be a reasonable method for something which only needs to be produced once or can be photocopied, but things that need to be personalised to the particular reader, cannot be done by hand. Writing and drawing a leaflet or poster is much more time consuming than when it is done on the computer and cannot easily be edited. But if a computer is not available to you, then it would need to be done by hand.

Conclusion:

Based on all the alternative methods that I have come up with, I think that the other methods would be much less effective and would be harder to control and manage. With a computerised presentation, it is easy for the web master to change and update things which have to be changed over a longer period of time and emergency changes. The touch screen will be very simple for everyone to use and most people would be physically able to work it. It also keeps up with the latest technology and it is meets most of the end user’s needs.