Physical Therapy Guidelines for Software Reviews General Description
What is the primary purpose of the software?
What are the specific hardware and software requirements? What computer and
operating system are needed to run the program? What are the memory, hard
disk, and visual display requirements?
Is any additional hardware or software required, such as a graphics adapter?
Evaluation and Testing
On what specific computer was the software evaluated? Please briefly describe
the computer you used to run the software (eg, processor, hard drive, other
hardware).
What exactly does the program do: What are the input characteristics supplied
by the user? What transformations or calculations are performed on the input?
What is the program’s output? Is the documentation quality acceptable?
If possible, was the program output verified against known values for the
same data? Were the calculations performed by the program found to be accurate
when compared with known values from the test data?
Did the software perform exactly as promised in the documentation? Were any
aspects of the program inaccessible?
How is the program’s output summarized (eg, descriptive text, tables,
graphics)? Is the summary clear and complete?
User Friendliness
Is the program easy to install and start up? Remember to briefly describe
the computer you used.
Is the program menu driven? Are the instruction prompts clear, and do they
appear in a logical sequence?
Is an online help text provided? If so, is it useful?
Is a manual or other documentation provided? Is the documentation sufficiently
detailed and easy to use?
What is the approximate level of computer expertise needed to use the software?
If evaluators other than the reviewer were involved, what were their experiences
when testing the software?
Applicability
Who would be interested in using this software?
What specific benefits would the software provide to physical therapy practitioners
(eg, enhanced documentation of patient progress, improved patient billing)?
If the program provides reports and summaries intended for patient use, are
these clear and understandable?
