PSA: Easily Book a COVID19 Vaccine in Ontario
The Region of Waterloo vaccine booking portal is a usability disaster. It is a huge pain to go to pharmacy sites individually looking for a vaccine appointment. Fortunately there is a tool which makes this easier: https://vaccine-ontario.ca .
The site is easy to use. Filter by your location and you will see available appointments both at public health sites and several major pharmacy chains. Once you see what is available you then have to go to the appropriate website to snag an appointment, but once you know the dates and locations of available appointments, this is much easier.
If you want an appointment with your mom-and-pop pharmacy you are out of luck, but if you just want a vaccine from somewhere, this tool is great. Unfortunately the tool is impossible to find using a search engine, so I am signal-boosting it here.
Sidebar: The Region of Waterloo Usability Disaster
So the process of signing up for an appointment on the Region of Waterloo site is not awful once you know when and where appointments are available. But finding that information is so frustrating:
- First you click through some consent form that most people won't read.
- Then it asks you to select a vaccine site. What? Why would you ask this first? Some people may have preferences for where they would like to be vaccinated, but many many people are willing to go to any location that is "close enough" (and for people with cars, that is probably anywhere in the region).
- The questions about priority populations are irritating but not harmful. But then there is a Google CAPTCHA, which means Google now knows you are booking a vaccine. Whee.
- Now it wants you to choose a date. There is a calendar display, but the calendar has NO INDICATION for which dates have appointments and which do not. So even if you manage to choose the right location, you have to click and click through different dates manually. How is this acceptable? You cannot put a visual indicator on the calendar itself to tell us what dates are available? We really have to play hide and go seek?
- The rest of the process is okay, but by this time you are thoroughly frustrated.
Seriously. Does the Region of Waterloo have a religious opposition to basic usability testing? Fortunately the vaccine-ontario.ca site solves these usability problems.
Also, the consent to participate in studies is opt-out, not opt-in:
I consent to have my scheduling record used in research studies to support the vaccine response. You may withdraw consent at any time by contacting the Region of Waterloo Public Health Privacy Office at ROWPHEPrivacy@regionofwaterloo.ca.
Wow that is a dark pattern.