In a clinic or hospital setting, there's always going to be someone on an initial learning period. So while discoverability may be "useless" to you, it's not useless to everyone.
The issue is also what's important for one use is not important for another. The person dispensing medication may not be the same person taking vitals, etc.
And it might be the common use case for that nurse, but another nurse may have a different workflow. What works for cardiovascular doesn't work for ophthalmology.
And all these people think they're equally important. They all want the same priority.
Not to mention, most people are bad at UX design. So while they should have opinions, they should not be the only consideration.
1, 2, 15, 100, the number of clicks doesn't really matter.
It's like measuring code quality by line count.
It's Spinal Tap. "But it's one less click, innit?" If it takes you 10 seconds to find the one place to click or requires such heavy front-loading that it slows down the system on every click, you've already failed. Doing more of the thing that caused you to fail is a hole with no bottom.
Second, the engineers and UX designers aren't the people really driving the design process. That's a problem. The people driving the design process don't know what they're doing. Because everyone things UX design is easy. It's not. It's hard. People think they know what they want, but the don't really. What they know is what they want to do. But they get it wrapped up in their mind that what and how are interchangeable. So "I want to prescribe medicine easy." becomes "Prescriptions need to be one click".
Maybe they don't really. Maybe to make them easier to do, they need to be in a context menu or something else. I don't know either. I'm not a UX designer by trade. Because I know it's hard.
I don't think it is, at all. And counting clicks isn't a fools game - it's a direct metric for how buried simple tasks are. Do you need 15 clicks to restart the process you're debugging? No, it's one click on the debug window. This is no different.
>"But it's one less click, innit?" If it takes you 10 seconds to find the one place to click or requires such heavy front-loading that it slows down the system on every click, you've already failed. Doing more of the thing that caused you to fail is a hole with no bottom.
Why would it take the nurse 10 seconds to find a button or place to click for an action they've performed thousands of times?
We've already established that new nurses have a training program to get familiar with the system. You don't think they are just hired and then thrown into 'go take care of this hallway by yourself' do you? And whats better - front loading so they can select a patient as they enter the room and let it all load up while getting ready to treat (confirm name, start gathering data, etc), or waiting 5 seconds every single time they click anything? Oops, clicked the wrong thing there - thats 10 seconds to let it load, back out, then select the right thing.
You can argue discoverability all you want - but go stay a week in a hospital and observe the people actually using the software. Watch how 3/4 of the time they're in your room they're fighting with the computer to perform simple tasks. Tasks they know how to do, but take way too long because of the clutter and poor design of the system. Watch them click 15 times through 4 different windows to dispense a medication - which they'll do 8 times a day just for you. Multiply by that by all the patients they're responsible for. Do you see the problem yet?
It feels like I'm saying 'make it easier to use for the people who use it' and you're saying 'no make it shinier so anyone off the street can use it' lol. Maybe we're actually saying similar things - just not aligning thoughts well?
> We've already established that new nurses have a training program to get familiar with the system
You've made the claim. But really, that's just washing your hands of the problem. I've been part of that training. I'd call it a joke, but there's nothing funny about it. You aren't going to get familiar with these systems in an afternoon seminar with the vendor's representatives.
You say this:
> You can argue discoverability all you want -
Then just make my argument for me.
> because of the clutter and poor design of the system
Reducing clutter would make things more discoverable. Making things discoverable is part of good desing.
I'm not saying "make it shinier". That's a poor inference on your part.
I'm saying the metrics by which we are using to design these systems are just flat out wrong. They are confusing the what with the how. And I'm not even getting into how sometimes you actually want things to be complex or hard to reach because you want the action to be deliberate.
Counting clicks is wrong. And anyone who advocates for it is also wrong. Discoverablity makes things easier to use. For the people who use it. You have this platonic ideal of a user who always knows the software in and out. That user does not exist. Any given user will only really use about 20% of the software, but every user will use a different 20%. So that other 80% needs to be discoverable. You shouldn't need to memorize or hunt down on a screen of options for it.
And since that 80% is different for all users, it logically follows that the entire system needs to be discoverable.
And that's not to say you can't implement shortcuts and hotkeys and what not. But really, any software shouldn't be making people think to much about how they're doing something so they can focus on what they're doing.
Your whole argument basically boils down to 'I somehow know better than the people who use the software for hours nearly every day and will disregard their usability complaints'. I think that is pretty arrogant and dismissive towards the users. I don't see us making any ground in this conversation so I'm going to leave it.
Not myself. But someone. Some people make it their job to figure this stuff out. UX design is a skill. A skill you have to train and study.
The idea that users themselves know how to make something usable is just as misguided as what you're accusing me of. It's like assuming that most people are good chefs because they have a lot of experience eating.
They can tell us whether something is bad or not, but they can't tell us how to make it good. Don't confuse the former for the latter.
They aren't exclusive. Something that is easily discovered gives you an efficiency of thought.
But "number of clicks" isn't a measure of efficiency.
What's the time from thought to action? That should be our main concern. If that takes one click, five clicks, ten thousand click, it doesn't matter. Thought to action.
The issue is also what's important for one use is not important for another. The person dispensing medication may not be the same person taking vitals, etc.
And it might be the common use case for that nurse, but another nurse may have a different workflow. What works for cardiovascular doesn't work for ophthalmology.
And all these people think they're equally important. They all want the same priority.
Not to mention, most people are bad at UX design. So while they should have opinions, they should not be the only consideration.