OVERVIEW
My Role
In my senior year, I was looking for subject areas that do not typically focus on usability. It dawned on me that the medical field traditionally thinks in terms of functionality almost entirely, leaving usability to the side. This makes sense, a pacemaker needs to be functioning before we can consider its usability but can usability serve to improve people’s quality of life? I believe so. This led me to elevator pitching the idea of user experience on Cornell’s Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Project Team (DEBUT). As the sole UX Researcher, I assisted various projects simultaneously and showed the team the importance of also thinking in terms of usability.
Teaching UX fundamentals to team
Facilitating user interviews with patients and doctors
Conducting brainstorming activities
Projects That I Assisted
Intelli-Patch
Our team was brainstorming of any problem areas currently in the biomedical industry and found that driveline infections for patients wearing a Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) are extremely high. This is because of the nature of constantly wearing an external device that breaks skin.
During the process of coming up with potential solutions, I recruited and interviewed LVAD patients and cardiologists on the current problem areas with the device.
Key Takeaways
Bowleggedness Brace
In Africa, many children are affected by rickets and therefor bowleggedness. Our team wanted to make the recovery process smoother for children, as the current braces for bowleggedness are highly restrictive. I assisted mechanical engineers in their prototyping phase, showing them the benefits of paper prototyping before making digital designs. I also facilitated contextual interviews with orthopedic surgeons and card sorted our findings in a group session.
Communication is vital in interdisciplinary teams. Trying to over explain UX to non-UX professionals is an uphill battle, speak in relatable terms.
When interviewing, deeply consider who you are speaking to. Use language that fits the individual(s) and know your audience in terms of redundancy. Doctors do not like feeling like they are wasting time.
Be patient with disabled user groups and always make sure that they feel included.