Family Caregivers Resource of Maui County: A Usability Study

Abstract

Self-care is the active practice of preserving or improving one’s health. Family caregivers, usually informal, non-health care professionals caring for a loved one, often overlook self-care while caregiving. Such oversight potentially leads to exhaustion, stress, burnout, and illness. The purpose of this usability study was to create a resource website to curate existing family caregiver resources relevant to caregivers and supporters of cancer patients. Serving the islands of Maui, Molokai, and Lāna`i, the resource site aimed to facilitate connection to local and online family caregiver resources, and reduce online research time for family caregivers, often overwhelmed with responsibilities. A user-centric (U/X) design approach was utilized to design a site responsive to mobile users. The objective of this usability study was to assess the resource site’s ease-of-use, the perceived value of the site, and to assess the feelings of user self-efficacy after use of the resource site. Twelve participants assessed the navigability of the site and the value of the content. Verbal feedback from participants during the study and data from post-usability surveys indicated that participants found the responsive site moderately easy to navigate, found high value in the content, and expressed high levels of confidence in understanding self-care after completion of the usability study.