Journal of biomedical informatics
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Symptom checkers are software tools that allow users to submit a set of symptoms and receive advice related to them in the form of a diagnosis list, health information or triage. The heterogeneity of their potential users and the number of different components in their user interfaces can make testing with end-users unaffordable. We designed and executed a two-phase method to test the respiratory diseases module of the symptom checker Erdusyk. ⋯ Our method was used effectively to optimize the testing of symptom checker user interfaces. The method allowed kept the cost of testing at reasonable levels by restricting the use of the think-aloud procedure while still assuring a high amount of coverage. The main barriers detected in Erdusyk were related to problems understanding time repetition patterns, the selection of levels in scales to record intensities, navigation, the quantification of some symptom attributes, and the characteristics of the symptoms.