Human Factors Projects and Insights (Medical Devices)
Learning when to pull the plug...
Working for a consultancy, your first instinct is to find any and all insights to help your client successfully move their product to the approval stage in their product’s life cycle. Some products are good in theory, but fail in practice.
For an at-home blood collection kit, I led a team of other human factors engineers in a summative evaluation of the kit and a formative evaluation of the associated product website.
Many important insights were uncovered. The most important, however, was that the product required much more work before it could/should be released to the public. While our team found many useful benefits of the kit and it was received well by users, there were too many issues to contend with. Ultimately, the client decided not to push the product to market.
This was my first experience where a client did not want to continue on with a product, despite it’s flaws. The required time and investment to redesign and manufacture the kit was more than the client wanted. And in the end, this decision was best for the client. I’m happy I was able to help them with this decision, which would most likely save them even more trouble and money down the road.
Empathy for real users
In Human Factors and UX research, everyone always says to have empathy for the user. I knew this, but there was one project that really cemented idea.
One client wanted to a summative evaluation performed on their at-home oxygen concentrator. The study was somewhat different than I had performed previously. The client wanted us to really emphasize real world use scenarios (e.g., simulating noisy environments) and try to have the user truly, deeply think about what they would do and how they would feel.
I won’t forget how many people told me their story. Users were telling me about their struggles with using oxygen and how difficult it was to breath without it. They also said they would be thrilled to have a device that allowed them more mobility and comfort away from home.
The product life cycle, from early stage to sales, requires empathy for the end user. In an industry meant to improve the lives and health of real-life people suffering from various maladies, empathy can only be an added value to the success of a product and company.
Bigger isn't always better
One thing I’ve consistently heard patient users comment on is that if a particular device or medication required fewer visits to the doctor, they would support the product.
One client wanted to assess if healthcare professionals could administer large volume, high viscosity medications (e.g., 30 mL).
This study required grip force measurements using a dynamometer and two simulated use scenarios. Dependent on the size of the syringe, users were required to deliver the medication over the course of 7 – 15 minutes.
A few things became apparent. First, healthcare professionals don’t like to waste time. If they could administer the medication faster, they would. I recall one M.D. administering the largest syringe that was supposed to take 15 minutes in about 3 minutes. Second, healthcare professionals need to consider multiple factors when administering such a medication. How fatigued will they become after 2, 3, 5 administrations? Many were concerned about the impact of performing such a task.
The insights from this project were very informative for the client and they ultimately found that the largest syringes, that would require fewer visits to the doctor, were not the best option for the professionals delivering the medication.
Keep it organized!
Sometimes clients have really great ideas, great products, but lack the expertise or personal to truly organize the flow of their work.
Early in my HF career, I was asked to perform a task analysis and visualize a task flow for a client bringing an stimulation device to market that would help with motor control issues (e.g., Parkinson’s Disease).
I learned how to use Figma to create visualizations of task flows. It’s a wonderful organizational tool. I also found out that even clients who bring products to you don’t fully realize all that is involved for users to effectively use their products. Simple instructions like turning on/off components, precise order of operations, etc. can make huge difference in the success of a product.
The image is a portion of one version of the task flow visualization I created with the help of another HF Engineer.
