Objective: This study measures the effects of contextual information quality on the productivity, usability and perceived workload in LIS to discern any benefits of using the system for manual data processing tasks.

Background: The increased speed in laboratory sample processing and decreased data integrity issues are attributed to the software automation built into modern LIS platforms. However, there are concerns from end-users regarding the efficacy and usability of the system for manual data processing tasks. Furthermore, knowledge of using LIS for manual data processing tasks are less understood, leaving a gap in understanding the cognitive factors of using LIS for such tasks.

Methods: Contextual Information Quality was applied to a redesign of the baseline LIS interface in order to compare the productivity (time on task, number of errors), usability and perceived workload for LIS users in manual data processing tasks. The productivity and usability for end- users under both interface designs are measured using the SUS survey and NASA-TLX, respectively. A short interview with each participant was conducted after the trial to understand the users’ perspective of using the baseline and redesigned LIS interfaces.

Results: Results from the experiments showed that the productivity measures (time on task and number of user errors) for manual data processing tasks, is increased when using the contextual Information Quality interface. Results gathered from the NASA-TLX survey infer significantly less perception of workload for users of the Information Quality interface compared to the baseline interface, while SUS survey scores also showed that users find the Information Quality redesign interface to be generally more “usable” than the baseline interface.

Conclusion: Adding contextual Information Quality features to manual data processing tasks in LIS increased the productivity for end users. The productivity increase could be a result from the users’ decreased perception of workload. The study also showed that end-users had more favorable relationship with the LIS interface when more contextual Information Quality is introduced.

Application: This study shows an alternative solution of increasing the usability and user satisfaction when using LIS for manual data processing tasks. Contextual Information quality can be added to any manual data processing systems with fewer effort from a system analyst. Potential applications in the field of Software Engineering and software design of information systems, where manual data input is a large function of the system.