Usability evaluation of a nursing information system by applying cognitive walkthrough method

•The CW evaluation is proper method in identifying problems related to system learnability and efficiency.•The highest average severity of identified problems was related to the scenario with the highest number of actions.•The highest number of identified problems was related to the scenario with highest number of actions in the third place. The user interface usability of the nursing information system (NIS) should be such that the nurses can learn and interact with it easily and quickly. Therefore, it is necessary to identify and solve the usability problems of these systems. The present study aimed to evaluate the usability of a NIS using the cognitive walkthrough (CW) evaluation method. Based on five selected scenarios, five evaluators evaluated the NIS in Shafa Hospital Information System. After identifying the problems, the evaluators assigned each problem to one of the usability attributes. The severity of each identified problem was determined by the evaluators and five real users of the system. In total, 24 unique problems were identified. The average severity of the problems was determined by the evaluators (2.77) and the actual users (2.82) in the "major problem" category. The highest number of problems were assigned to the scenarios 3 and 2 with 15 and 14 problems, respectively. The highest average severity in terms of evaluations and actual users was related to the scenario 5 (3.06 and 2.94, respectively), which was in the "major problem" category. The highest number of problems were associated with learnability (8 problems) and efficiency (6 problems). Since most of the nurses do not have enough time for learning the system, and given that the selected scenarios for evaluation were based on the most frequent daily tasks that nurses performed using the NIS; The correction of usability problems in the scenarios 3 and 2 that had the highest number of problems and the scenario 5 that had the highest average severity and execution time; it can reduce the nurses' cognitive load and the learning time of the system and increase the efficiency of nurses.