3. MedTech
User-Centered Design
• Often, systems are designed with a focus on:
- Business goals
- Fancy features
- Technological capabilities of hardware and software tools
• These approaches omit the most important part of the process: the end
user
• User-Centered Design (UCD)
- Iterative methodology that puts the user at the center of all design
decisions
- Process of designing a tool (such as the user interface) from the
perspective of how it will be understood and used by a human user
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User-Centered Design
4. MedTech
UCD: Goal
• Optimize a user’s experience of a system, product or process
- Considers the user perspectives during all phases of the development
lifecycle
• User Perspectives
- Needs and wants
- Goals, motivations and triggers
- Obstacles and limitations
- Tasks, activities and behaviors
- Geography and language
- Environment and gear
- Work life and experience
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User-Centered Design
5. MedTech
UCD : Philosophy
From system-centered design, to user-centered design
The system adapts to the user, not the opposite!
5
User-Centered Design
System-Centered Design
• Component focus
• System driven (use cases)
• Product defect view of quality
• Focus on system robustness
User-Centered Design
• Solutions focus
• Real-world scenario driven
• Task success view of quality
• Focus on UI robustness
6. MedTech
UCD: Principles
• Early focus on users, tasks and environment
- Structured and systematic information gathering (interviews, observation,
etc.)
- Users are involved throughout design and development
• Empirical measurement and testing
- Testing with real users
- Focus on ease of learning and ease of use
• Iterative Design
- Product designed, modified and tested repeatedly.
- Allow for the complete overhaul and rethinking of design by early testing of
conceptual models and design ideas.
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User-Centered Design
9. MedTech
Step 1 - Analysis
9
UCD Process
• Meet with key stakeholders to set vision
• Include usability tasks in the project plan
• Assemble a multidisciplinary team to ensure complete expertise
• Develop usability goals and objectives
• Conduct field studies
• Look at competitive products
• Create user profiles
• Develop a task analysis
• Analyze information architecture
• Document user scenarios
• Document user performance requirements
11. MedTech
UCD and Agile
11
UCD Process
• Move UCD deliverables to a quarterly management cycle
• New features and functionality gained from field study and usability tests
should be reviewed and prioritized at every new monthly build review meeting
• Cascade usability finding to agile review cycles
14. MedTech
Usability
• Main Objective of UCD: Create products with a high degree of Usability
• Usability
- Extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve
specified goals with effectiveness and satisfaction in a specified context
of use
• Usability depends on how well:
- The functionality fits the user needs?
- The flow through the application fits user tasks?
- The response of the application fits the user expectations?
• Usability is the quality of a system that makes it easy to learn, easy to
use, easy to remember, error tolerant, and subjectively pleasing.
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15. MedTech
Usability vs. UCD
• How to achieve a high degree of usability?
- Employ iterative design
✴ Progressively refines the design through evaluation from the early stages of
design
- Test actual users on a working system
✴
Focusing design efforts on the intended end-user of the system
• Just make the distinction:
- Usability is not UCD
- Usability is an outcome of UCD practices
- Usability is a result, a goal, a field while UCD is a methodology
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UCD Disciplines
16. MedTech
Usability Objectives
• Usefulness
- Product enables the user to achieve his goals, and the tasks it is supposed to carry
out
• Effectiveness
- Ease of use
- Quantitatively measured by speed of performance or error rates
• Learnability
- Ease of learning
- User’s ability to operate the system to some defined level of competence after
some predetermined period of training
- Ability for infrequent users to relearn the system
• Attitude/Likability
- User’s perceptions, feelings and opinions of the product => User eXperience
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17. MedTech
User-Experience
• Behavior, attitude and emotions of a user when he uses a product,
system or service
• Includes practical, experimental, emotional and human-machine
interaction aspects
• Concerns
- Utility of the product
- Ease of use of the product
- Efficiency of the product
• Very subjective notion, as it depends on the considered person
• Dynamic notion, as it evolves with time
- Depending on the circumstances of use
- Depending on the habits and trends of the user
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18. MedTech
UX vs UI
UI: User Interface
Technical: What the users manipulate to interact
with the product
UX: User eXperience
Emotional: What the users feel when using the
product
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UCD Disciplines
19. MedTech
User-Experience Design
• User Experience Design (UXD) entails conducting user research
exercises with intended user of a system
• Reveals users' needs and preferences through :
- User observations
- One-to-one interviews
- Creative activities that encourage users to express their emotions,
motivations and underlying concepts and beliefs
• Why is Style and Design important?
- The form must follow the function
✴
What is the intended message the system wants to send?
- Consistency
✴
If it looks the same, it should act the same..
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Factors Influencing UX
• Useful
- The content should be original and fulfill a need
• Usable
- The product must be easy to use
• Desirable
- Image, identity, brand, and other design elements
are used to evoke emotion and appreciation
• Findable
- Any needed content needs to be navigable and
locatable
• Accessible
- Content needs to be accessible to people with
difficulties
• Credible
- Users must trust and believe what the product
communicates
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UCD Disciplines
Usable desirable
Useful
findable
credible
accessible
Valuable
User Experience Honeycomb - Peter Morville
27. MedTech
Accessibility
• Users vary by language, gender, age, culture, preferences and interests
• In software engineering, other differences must be addressed
- Skills, ability levels, constraints of use
• Consider disability:
- 1 in 5 people in US has a disability
- Almost 30 million people are impacted by inaccessible computer and
software design
• Design for diversity
- Increases the number of people able to access the software
- Increases their level of involvement in it
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28. MedTech
Accessibility Basics
• Incorporate accessibility early and throughout the project
- Decreases the time and money to design accessible products
- Increases the positive impact that accessibility can have on design overall
• Involving people with disabilities in your project
- High ROI (Return on Investment)
- If difficult, get training from an accessibility consultant
- Start with people fairly experienced with products like yours, then switch to
novices
• Interacting with people with disabilities
- Respect the person and see them beyond their disability
- Do a little research to ensure that you use widely-accepted terminology and avoid
potentially offensive terminology
- Get to know them until you are comfortable and able to see the real issues and
challenges
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29. MedTech
Interacting with Disabled People : Recommandations
• Don’t make assumptions about people or their disabilities
- Don’t assume you know what they want or need
- If a person with disability prefers one way, it doesn’t mean another will prefer it the same
way
• Ask before you help, even if they seem to be struggling…
• Talk directly to the person, not to the interpreter or friend
• Speak normally, not louder or slower…
• Use « people-first » language
- Put the person first and the disability second
- Say, for example: « a man who is blind », instead of « a blind man »
• Avoid potentially offensive terms or euphemisms
- Ask them what terms they prefer
- Say, for example: « blind » instead of « visually impaired »
• Be aware of personal space
- Don’t touch, move or lean on their mobility aids
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30. MedTech
Information Architecture
• How to create intuitive navigation schemes for software
• Applies to any kind of software application
• Should be designed to make it easier for the users to find desired
information or functionality
• Can add important context to the current page
- When a user begins the visit from within the website (having come
directly from a search engine for example)
• An information architect must create navigation schemes for software
that are at once concise, descriptive, mutually-exclusive, and possessive
of information scent.
- Information scent: cues used in an information display that help people
locate and navigate to relevant information
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Information Architecture: Tips
• Navigation should:
- Be easy to learn.
- Be consistent throughout the software.
- Provide feedback, such as the use of breadcrumbs to indicate how to navigate
back to where the user started.
- Use the minimum number of clicks to arrive at the next destination.
- Use clear and intuitive labels, based on the user’s perspective and
terminology.
- Support user tasks.
- Have each link be distinct from other links.
- Group navigation into logical units.
- Avoid making the user scroll to get to important navigation or submit buttons.
- Not disable the browser’s back button.
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32. MedTech
Information Architecture: Steps
1. Find out what the mission or purpose of the website is: why will people
come to your site?
2. Determine the immediate and long-range goals of the site: are they
different?
3. Pinpoint the intended audiences and conduct a requirements analysis for
each group.
4. Collect site content and develop a content inventory.
5. Determine the website’s organizational structure, which can include:
- hierarchical
- narrow and deep
- broad and shallow
- sequential
- tag-based
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33. MedTech
Information Architecture: Steps
6. Create an outline of the site, which can include:
- Content Inventory: a hierarchical view of the site content, typically in a
spreadsheet format, which briefly describes the content that should
appear on each page and indicates where pages belong in terms of global
and local navigation.
- Site Maps: visual diagrams that reflect site navigation and main content
areas. They are usually constructed to look like flowcharts and show how
users will navigate from one section to another. Other formats may also
indicate the relationships between pages on the site.
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36. MedTech
Information Architecture: Steps
7. Create a visual blueprint of the site, which can include Wireframes
- Rough illustrations of page content and structure, which may also
indicate how users will interact with the website.
- These diagrams get handed off to a visual designer, who will establish
page layout and visual design.
- Wireframes are useful for communicating early design ideas and inform
the designer and the client of exactly what information, links, content,
promotional space, and navigation will be on every page of the site.
- Wireframes may illustrate design priorities in cases where various types
of information appear to be competing.
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38. MedTech
Information Architecture: Steps
8. Define the navigation systems:
- Global navigation: Global navigation is the primary means of navigation through a
software. Global navigation links appear on every page of the site, typically as a
menu located at the top or side of each web page.
- Local navigation: Local links may appear as text links within the content of a page or
as a submenu for a section of the website. Local navigation generally appears in the
left-hand margin of a web page and sometimes is placed below the global navigation.
- Utility links: Utility links appear in the header or footer of every page. These may
include infrequently used links such as: Contact Us, About Us, Customer Support,
Customer Feedback, Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, Site Map, Press Room, etc. Search
boxes often appear in the header of the site as well, so the Search feature is
available on every page of the site.
9. Conduct user research:
- Once you have a draft navigation structure, conduct appropriate usability research
to collect feedback from the target audience.
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39. MedTech
Interaction Design
• Design of interactive products and services
• Particularly concerns the way people interact with products and services.
• Can be examined through five dimensions
- Words (1D) encompass text, such as button labels, that help convey the right amount
of information to users.
- Visual representations (2D) are graphical elements such as images, typography, and
icons that aid in user interaction.
- Physical objects/space (3D) involves the medium through which users interact with the
product or service—for instance, a laptop via a mouse, or a mobile phone via fingers.
- Time (4D) relates to media that changes with time, such as animations, videos, and
sounds.
- Behavior (5D) is concerned with how the previous four dimensions define the
interactions a product affords—for instance, how users can perform actions on a
website, or how users can operate a car. Behavior is also about how the product reacts
to the users’ inputs and provides feedback.
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40. MedTech
Visual Design
• Focuses on the aesthetics of a product and its related materials by
strategically implementing images, colors, fonts, and other elements
• A successful visual design
- does not take away from the content on the page or function.
- enhances it by engaging users and helping to build trust and interest in the
brand.
• Visual Design Elements
- Lines
- Shapes
- Color palette
- Texture
- Typography
- Form
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UCD Disciplines
41. MedTech
Visual Design: Principles
• Unity has to do with all elements on a page visually or conceptually
appearing to belong together. Visual design must strike a balance between
unity and variety to avoid a dull or overwhelming design.
• Gestalt, in visual design, helps users perceive the overall design as
opposed to individual elements. If the design elements are arranged
properly, the Gestalt of the overall design will be very clear.
• Space is “defined when something is placed in it”, according to Alex White
in his book, The Elements of Graphic Design. Incorporating space into a
design helps reduce noise, increase readability, and/or create illusion.
White space is an important part of your layout strategy.
• Hierarchy shows the difference in significance between items. Designers
often create hierarchies through different font sizes, colors, and placement
on the page. Usually, items at the top are perceived as most important.
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42. MedTech
Visual Design: Principles
• Balance creates the perception that there is equal distribution. This
does not always imply that there is symmetry.
• Contrast focuses on making items stand out by emphasizing
differences in size, color, direction, and other characteristics.
• Scale identifies a range of sizes; it creates interest and depth by
demonstrating how each item relates to each other based on size.
• Dominance focuses on having one element as the focal point and others
being subordinate. This is often done through scaling and contrasting
based on size, color, position, shape, etc.
• Similarity refers to creating continuity throughout a design without
direct duplication. Similarity is used to make pieces work together over
an interface and help users learn the interface quicker.
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45. MedTech
Use Cases
• Describe the interactions between an individual and the rest of the
world
• Normally include details about an interaction represented with series
of simple steps to achieve a goal
• Normally expressed in a two-column table: Actor/World
• Helps making problems easier for the designer
- Because it breaks the complicated tasks into smaller bits
• Helps identify useful levels of design work
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UCD Techniques
46. MedTech
Personas
• Fictional character with all the characteristics of the user
- Illustrate a typical profile of a user in a target segment
• An effective persona
- Represents a major user group
- Expresses and focuses on the major needs and expectations of the most important user
groups
- Gives a clear picture of the user’s expectations and how they’re likely to use the product
- Aids in uncovering universal features and functionality
- Describes real people with backgrounds, goals and values
• A persona
- Must have a name, a picture and be considered as a real man or woman
- Has descriptive information: age, gender, address, job, etc.
- Has a motivation for using the product
- Has a quote that sums up what matters most to the persona as it relates to your site
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UCD Disciplines
47. MedTech
Personas: Best Practices
• Conduct user research: Answer the following questions: Who are your users
and why are they using the system? What behaviors, assumptions, and
expectations color their view of the system?
• Condense the research: Look for themes/characteristics that are specific,
relevant, and universal to the system and its users.
• Brainstorm: Organize elements into persona groups that represent your
target users. Name or classify each group.
• Refine: Combine and prioritize the rough personas. Separate them into
primary, secondary, and, if necessary, complementary categories. You should
have roughly 3-5 personas and their identified characteristics.
• Make them realistic: Develop the appropriate descriptions of each personas
background, motivations, and expectations. Do not include a lot of personal
information. Be relevant and serious; humor is not appropriate.
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49. MedTech
Scenarios
• A fictional story about the daily life or a sequence of events where personas are the
main character of the story
• The story should be specific of the events happening that relate to the problems of
the primary stakeholder group
• Are based on assumptions and data
• Create a social context in which the personas exist (in the actual physical world)
• Consider:
- Who is the user? Use the personas that have been developed to reflect the
real, major user groups coming to your site.
- Why does the user come to the site? Note what motivates the user to come to
the site and their expectations upon arrival, if any.
- What goals does he/she have? Through task analysis, you can better
understand the what the user wants on your site and therefore what the site
must have for them to leave satisfied.
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UCD Techniques
50. MedTech
Scenarios : Types
• Goal- or Task-Based Scenarios
- State only what the user wants to do, do not include any information on how the user would complete the
scenario.
- Useful in helping to define your site architecture and content.
- Should be given to users in a usability test. It gives them a reason and a goal for going to the site, but it
lets them show you how they would use the site to accomplish that goal.
• Elaborated Scenarios
- Give more user story details.
- Give a deeper understanding of the users and users’ characteristics that may help or hinder site
interaction.
- Knowing this information, the team is more likely to develop content, functionality, and site behavior that
users find comfortable and easy to work with.
• Full Scale Task Scenarios
- Include the steps to accomplish the task.
- Either report all the steps that a specific user currently takes or it can describe the steps you plan to set
up for users in the new site.
- Very similar to use cases, but they lay out the steps from the user's point of view rather than from the
website's point of view.
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51. MedTech
Screening Techniques
• Simple activities to help identify potential accessibility barriers in product
designs.
• Interacting with a product with one or more physical or sensory abilities
eliminated or modified
- for example, wearing thick gloves to limit your dexterity, and wearing low vision
glasses or blindfolds to limit your vision.
• Involve using adaptive strategies, assistive devices, and assistive technologies.
- For example, a software designer turns off her monitor and uses a screen reader
to interact with her application
• Screening techniques are not disability simulations.
- They do not replicate the real-life experiences of people with disabilities, as
people with disabilities are likely to do much better using a product than people
who are using screening techniques, because they are used to interacting with
products with their functional limitation.
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UCD Techniques
52. MedTech
Card Sorting
• A method used to help design or evaluate the information architecture of a site
• Participants organize topics into categories that make sense to them and they
may also help you label these groups.
• You can use actual cards, pieces of paper, or one of several online card-sorting
software tools
• Two types
- Open card sort : Participants are asked to organize topics from content within your
website into groups that make sense to them and then name each group they
created in a way that they feel accurately describes the content.
✴ Use an open card sort to learn how users group content and the terms or labels they give
each category.
- Closed card sort : Participants are asked to sort topics from content within your
website into pre-defined categories.
✴ Works best when you are working with a pre-defined set of categories, and you want to
learn how users sort content items into each category.
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54. MedTech
Prototyping
• Draft version of a product that allows you to explore your ideas and show the
intention behind a feature or the overall design concept to users before
investing time and money into development.
• Should be done early in the design process
• Two types:
- Low Fidelity Prototypes: often paper-based and do not allow user interactions.
Quicker to create. Enable early visualization of alternative design solutions,
which helps provoke innovation and improvement. An additional advantage to
this approach is that when using rough sketches, users may feel more
comfortable suggesting changes.
- High-Fidelity Prototypes: computer-based, and usually allow realistic (mouse-
keyboard) user interactions. Assumed to be much more effective in collecting
true human performance data (e.g., time to complete a task), and in
demonstrating actual products to clients, management, and others.
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55. MedTech
Usability Testing
• Evaluating a product or service by testing it with representative users.
• Participants will try to complete typical tasks while observers watch,
listen and take notes
• Goal:
- identify any usability problems,
- collect qualitative and quantitative data, and
- determine the participant's satisfaction with the product.
• Steps for usability testing
- Develop a test plan
- Recruit participants
- Analyze the findings
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UCD Techniques
56. MedTech
Usability Testing : Test Plan
• Document :
- what you are going to do,
- how you are going to conduct the test,
- what metrics you are going to capture,
- number of participants you are going to test, and
- what scenarios you will use.
• Elements of a test plan
- Scope: what you are testing
- Purpose: Identify the concerns, questions, and goals for this test.
- Schedule & Location: Indicate when and where you will do the test.
- Sessions: Describe the sessions, their length (typically one hour to 90
minutes)
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57. MedTech
Usability Testing : Test Plan
• Elements of a test plan (2)
- Equipement: Type of equipment you will be using in the test;
- Participants: Number and types of participants to be tested you will be recruiting
- Scenarios: number and types of tasks included in testing.
- Metrics: Subjective metrics: Include the questions you are going to ask the
participants:
✴ prior to the sessions (e.g., background questionnaire),
✴ after each task scenario is completed (ease and satisfaction questions about the
task), and
✴ overall ease, satisfaction and likelihood to use/recommend the software
- Quantitative metrics: Indicate the quantitative data you will be measuring in your
test (e.g., successful completion rates, error rates, time on task).
- Roles: Include a list of the staff who will participate in the usability testing and
what role each will play.
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58. MedTech
Usability Testing : Test Metrics
• Successful Task Completion: The scenario is successfully completed when the participant
indicates they have found the answer or completed the task goal.
• Critical Errors: Deviations at completion from the targets of the scenario. Essentially the
participant will not be able to finish the task. Participant may or may not be aware that
the task goal is incorrect or incomplete.
• Non-Critical Errors: Non-critical errors are errors that are recovered by the participant
and do not result in the participant’s inability to successfully complete the task.
• Error-Free Rate: Error-free rate is the percentage of test participants who complete the
task without any errors (critical or non-critical errors).
• Time On Task: The amount of time it takes the participant to complete the task.
• Subjective Measures: These evaluations are self-reported participant ratings for
satisfaction, ease of use, ease of finding information, etc where participants rate the
measure on a 5 to 7-point Likert scale.
• Likes, Dislikes and Recommendations: Participants provide what they liked most about the
site, what they liked least about the site, and recommendations for improving the site.
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59. MedTech
Usability Testing : Recruiting Test participants
• Must be similar to your product users
• If you have multiple potential users groups:
- include representatives of all these groups
- perform testing with each group separately
• Use your internal staff only if:
- They have had no involvement in the design or development of the site or product and
- They represent a target audience
• Nielsen(https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-many-test-users/) outlines the number of
participants that you need based on a number of case studies:
- Usability Tests: test 5 users lets you find almost as many usability problems as you'd find
using many more test participants.
- Quantitative studies (aiming at statistics, not insights): test at least 20 users to get
statistically significant numbers; tight confidence intervals require more users.
- Card sorting: test at least 15 users.
- Eye tracking: test 39 users if you want stable heat maps.
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60. MedTech
Usability Testing : Running the test
• Choose a moderating technique, such as:
- Concurrent Think Aloud:
✴ Used to understand participants’ thoughts as they interact with a product by
having them think aloud while they work. The goal is to encourage participants
to keep a running stream of consciousness as they work.
- Retrospective Think Aloud:
✴ Moderator asks participants to retrace their steps when the session is
complete. Often participants watch a video replay of their actions
- Concurrent Probing:
✴ Requires that as participants work on tasks—when they say something
interesting or do something unique, the researcher asks follow-up questions.
- Retrospective Probing:
✴
Requires waiting until the session is complete and then asking questions about
the participant’s thoughts and actions.
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61. MedTech
Usability Testing : Best Practices
• Treat participants with respect and make them feel comfortable.
• Remember that you are testing the site not the users. Help them understand that they are
helping us test the prototype or Web site.
• Remain neutral – you are there to listen and watch. If the participant asks a question, reply
with “What do you think?” or “I am interested in what you would do.”
• Do not jump in and help participants immediately and do not lead the participant. If the
participant gives up and asks for help, you must decide whether to end the scenario, give a
hint, or give more substantial help.
• The team should decide how much of a hint you will give and how long you will allow the
participants to work on a scenario when they are clearly going down an unproductive path.
• Take good notes. Note-takers should capture what the participant did in as much detail as
possible as well as what they say (in their words). The better the notes are that are taken
during the session, the easier the analysis will be.
• Measure both performance and subjective (preference) metrics. People's performance and
preference do not always match. Often users will perform poorly but their subjective ratings
are very high. Conversely, they may perform well but subjective ratings are very low.
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