Scenario: A healthcare software company was looking to deliver a best-in-class suite of products and establish itself as a leader in its field. It had a unique set of challenges including a insufficient resources to deliver an ambitious set of software products, the need to integrate with multiple vendors by adhering to a dizzying array of clinical and healthcare standards, and a lack of a mature software-development and profession services infrastructure.

Engagement: PointClear Solutions was engaged to design and build the software solutions, to work with end users and customers to enhance usability, to guide the business with their product strategy, and to help the business design a mature, efficient software development division. PointClear's partners brought to bear a wealth of experience in Healthcare and Life Sciences information technology to deliver product that is unique, adaptable, and, most importantly, extremely valuable to the users and clients of the company.

Results: PointClear was engaged is the earliest stages of the development of the products and served the client even after the product arrived on the market. PointClear's commitment to putting its best and brightest on this long-term relationship resulted in a deep, personal understanding of the needs of the business. By serving the client through difficult challenges--as well as its successes--PointClear was uniquely positioned to help this company achieve its vision of giving patients empowering tools to manage their own health.

Scenario: Our client is a life sciences product company supplying genetics content to researchers and scientists, and bringing new scientific developments to market through an open-source model. The extensive catalog of genomics products is available on the web site for users to search and ultimately purchase.

The company made some changes to the web site including the way products were purchased, but it had a negative impact on sales. Further, the web development team was experimenting with a new type of product search but were unsure of how successful it was.

Engagement: PointClear Solutions was hired to conduct usability testing on the existing web site, document issues, and suggest interface changes. PointClear contacted existing customers and scheduled usability interviews. A total of 10 users were interviewed one-on-one using remote desktop software, so that the test facilitator could watch the user interact with the web site on the user's own computer. The usability tests were recorded in video format for playback to the client. The engagement lasted roughly two months.

Results: PointClear helped our client more accurately describe their target audiences and the differences in these audiences' needs based on feedback obtained from the usability interviews. In addition, PointClear presented a list of web site usability issues, including difficulty with product search and search results, difficulty completing purchases, finding technical documents, and frustration at the lack of visible pricing. The presentation included video clips from usability tests to illustrate the issues firsthand.

The company immediately implemented several suggestions and continues to implement interface changes to address the issues found. In the first two months after search was simplified and prices shown, completed purchases increased by 15% and product search by 13%.

Scenario: A healthcare software company provides a mobile handheld software program that works in conjunction with the physician portal to give physicians bedside access to patient records, including labs, vitals, and transcriptions. The mobile component was ready for a technical refresh, and PointClear was engaged to provide usability and software development services.

Engagement: PointClear conducted usability evaluations of the existing mobile application with physicians and hospital administrators throughout the US. Because the application runs on a handheld device, a device emulator was used on the test facilitator's computer, so that both the facilitator and the participant could have access to the interface through remote desktop sharing.

The usability evaluations were aimed at targeting issues with the existing application and determining a user wish list for the next version. PointClear also conducted a competitive analysis of other physician handheld charting applications to determine gaps in the application feature set, and compare competitor features with the user wish list.

Results: PointClear presented our client with a list of user issues and requests as they related to the existing version of the mobile application, and a comparison of how the requests matched up with competitor offerings. Creating the next generation of the application involved a migration to a new development platform, so minimal changes were made initially. Moving forward, our client plans to prioritize requests and incorporate the top priority items into the software.