participatory design

Project	Home service oxygen and durable medical equipment delivery

	Design a enterprise performance support system to improve customer service and company profitability for a highly distributed and autonomous franchise company. Design an electronic system to replace a partial electronic and manual paper process. Most of the people using the system were not computer literate and their primary job is to care for terminally ill patients.
Research	Many techniques were used to gather information including, interviews, observation, using the existing computer system and reviewing training and documentation. To enhance the information gathering and to get clarification during the design process, company experts in each role were included in a participatory process. Individual experts in each of the roles were recruited and learned how to do research, analysis and design.
Analysis	After providing a vision and architecture for the project, analysis and design were performed in short cycles for each task and screen flow. Subject matter experts in each role provided input into the business processes, system processes in place, and functional requirements. Alternatives were brainstormed and the design was driven with input from the experts along the way. Paper prototypes were used to vet the design in the field.

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