The infusion experience
Design the user experience for a family of connected medical appliances and a cloud-based content management system.
Project type
Experience guidelines
Platform
Illustrated documentation, interactive prototypes, animations
My role
Sr. interaction designer
(consultant)
Timeline
2012
Team
Associate creative director
2 Sr. industrial designers
2 Sr. interaction designers
Interaction design intern
Rapid prototyper
Constraints
Remote, inexperienced client, unconventional screen sizes
A serious problem
The FDA released new safety requirements for drug infusion systems. The intention was to prevent accidents due to user error or confusing digital interfaces.
We went to several hospitals to see first-hand the technical challenges that doctors and nurses have to deal with in setting up, monitoring, and managing infusion pumps and the fluids they pump—everything from saline, to chemotherapeutics, to type O blood.
Photo by Ed and Eddie
An audacious vision
Insights from the hospital visits drove us to design a modular system that could quickly get one infusion started, yet also allow medical professionals to scale up the system to manage up to 16 concurrent infusions for one patient.
Excerpt from UI guidance
Prototyping with nurses
One of the touch-screen devices was narrow and hard to type numbers on—especially with gloves. We set up an iPad to simulate it and test with nurses. We also walked through UX flows for the most common (and the most complicated) infusions.
Responsibilities
Facilitate collaborative design workshops with clients and users. Lead a small team of designers, developers, and interns. Survey visual trends in interactive product design.
Deliverables
Task-based screen flows, interactive prototypes, Ul guidance documents for development team and visual designers.