Development of an online system navigation database to support equitable access to assistive technology in Canada: A usability evaluation study (Preprint)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND Assistive technology (AT) can contribute to how individuals participate and engage in their everyday activities, such as in communication and mobility, and facilitates access to services they require. In Canada, there are over 220 government and charitable-organization programs that provide funding and services to AT across Canada; however, navigating the system that has been described as fragmented and complex results in inequitable access for those who need AT. The AccessATCanada website was developed as a centralized online resource to address challenges with access to AT, by providing information about existing jurisdictional AT funding programs and services across Canada. OBJECTIVE The study’s objectives were to evaluate and enhance usability of the AccessATCanada website by gathering feedback about its features and functionality from potential users, and present key usability themes. METHODS A mixed-methods usability testing study was conducted with a purposive sample of participants to measure effectiveness, efficiency, and user satisfaction, and to identify issues with the interface during user interaction. A qualitative thematic analysis of the usability testing sessions and semi-structured interviews were used to generate qualitative insights and core themes. User feedback was used to inform subsequent updates of the database with the goal of enhancing website friendliness and functionality prior to its official launch. RESULTS A total of 10 participants were included in the study with two rounds of usability testing. Overall, the majority of the tasks were able to be completed successfully by participants and demonstrated few issues with website effectiveness or user efficiency. The website received an overall System Usability Score 62.22, ranked as ‘OK/fair to good’. Common themes regarding strengths and areas for improvement were revealed during qualitative analysis. The strengths of the website were noted as ease of navigation and value for users such as health care professionals new to the field of AT. Core themes related to usability challenges were related to presentation, functionality, and language. The majority of identified challenges were reported as minor and included issues such as colour and size of text, the functionality of the filters, and terms that were not in lay language. CONCLUSIONS This study highlights the value of usability testing, and elements that are key in the creation of user-centered resources. The creation and development of a centralized, user-friendly resource, AccessATCanada, fills a gap that expands the reach of AT programs and services across Canada, assists with navigating the current complex funding systems, and helps to improve equity of funding access.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.015 | 0.025 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".