HUMAN FACTORS
The SentiAR Wearable Command Center is an interprocedural augmented reality (AR) system—with the user interface built off the Microsoft HoloLens—that enables the electrophysiologist to model the heart. (Credit: HS Design, Inc.)
Medical Product Changes Stemming from User Centered Design KEREN SOOKNE, DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL CONTENT TOP THREE TAKEAWAYS 1. Interacting with end users improves medical device and machinery designs.
2. User centered design helps manage technical and marketing trade-offs.
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t this year’s MD&M BIOMEDigital, industry experts held a discussion on the role of user centered design (UCD) in next-gen medical product development. As Tor Alden, Global Design, Engineering and Human Factors lead at HS Design, Inc. (HS), explained, UCD is a methodology that focuses on gaining a deeper understanding of the product end user. It outlines the phases throughout a design and development lifecycle to help create a product that fits within the user’s environment. Some of the key benefits are: • User needs are clearly communicated. • It provides a clear framework for documentation for the FDA. • It helps capture and translate user needs early in the process to allow for product pivots. • It helps manage technical and marketing trade-offs. • It allows early feedback from the users to see if products are
3. In one case, feedback led a tabletop system to become a floor-standing model.
actually responding to them. The panelists discussed how they approached the UCD process in their various fields and how it led to success in development.
Lab automation equipment Aleksandar Vacic, Chief Operating Office and Co-Founder of Selux Diagnostics, Inc., presented a case in which they were new to UCD. They brought in advisors from HS who started embedding it into their culture and process at the outset of developing the Selux Next Generation Phenotyping Platform, which aims to transform the treatment of infectious disease by fast-tracking targeted patient therapies within 24 hours. “When done well, UCD can turbocharge your development process. It’s really kind of meant for agile development because it brings you closer to the users, and shortens that feedback loop which is very important,” said Vacic.
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