What Makes Your ePRO Actually Easy to Use?

Electronic patient-reported outcomes (ePROs) are meant to capture data directly from participants. When designed well, they feel intuitive and are easy to complete. When they are not, they become a source of confusion, frustration, and poor compliance.

But what does usability really mean in this context?

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Friction in the Participant Experience

If participants struggle to answer a question, find the next page, or figure out what a scale means, their data quality drops and so does their willingness to keep going. Usability is not about nice graphics. It is about reducing friction at every point.

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Think Like a Participant

Consider these questions during design:

• Would someone unfamiliar with clinical research understand the instructions?
• Are the questions phrased in everyday language?
• Does the layout work just as well on a phone as it does on a tablet?

Simple choices, like putting one question per screen or using clear font sizes, make a difference. So does limiting scrolling or preventing unintentional answers from being submitted.

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Common Design Pitfalls

Even experienced teams fall into some traps:

- Too many items per screen: Makes it easy to miss questions or tap the wrong thing

- Ambiguous language: Clinical terms that mean little to lay participants

- Inconsistent scales: Mixing 1–5 and 0–10 scales with unclear anchors

- Lack of feedback: No message confirming data was saved or submitted

All of these can lead to confusion or partial completion, which then affects the integrity of your dataset.

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Test, Observe, Adapt

Real usability testing matters. Not just internal reviews but actual participant feedback. Try:

• Observing a few people complete a test version
• Asking them to speak aloud as they go
• Timing how long typical sections take
• Gathering comments on what felt unclear or tedious

The goal is not to achieve perfection, but to eliminate obstacles. Every small tweak can improve the likelihood that participants stay engaged for the full duration of the study.

Accessibility Should Not Be Optional

Good design is inclusive by default. That means:

• High-contrast text and backgrounds
• Screen reader compatibility
• Buttons large enough to tap comfortably
• Avoiding dependence on audio-only or visual-only cues

Participants are diverse. Their devices, environments and physical abilities vary as well as your ePRO should work for all of them.

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A Tool, Not a Test

An ePRO is not meant to test digital skills. It is meant to make participation simple. When it does, participants provide better data, stay enrolled longer, and feel more positive about their study experience. Simplicity is not about removing information. It is about presenting it in a way that supports understanding. In ePRO design, that is what good usability really means.