Namahn was tasked with overhauling the user interface of an Agfa Healthcare digital imaging and management product to better align with radiographers' workflows. Through field studies and usability testing with radiographers, Namahn designed conceptual interfaces, created prototypes, and developed engineering specifications. The resulting interface reduced radiographer training time from days to hours, giving Agfa a competitive advantage.

1. A radiographer’s workstation timeQ3 2003 – Q3 2005 durationtwo years

2. About Agfa HealthCare Agfa HealthCare is a leading provider of IT-enabled clinical workflow and diagnostic image management solutions, and image capturing and processing systems in hospitals and healthcare facilities. For more then 12 years, we have worked on successive generations of their radiology image control tools. business to business

3. Design challenge Agfa Healthcare called on Namahn for the complete overhaul of the user interface of a digital image processing and management product to ensure it corresponded more closely to the radiographers’ workflow needs. discipline interaction design

5. Scenarios of use

6. Conceptual design

7. Prototyping

8. Usability testing

10. Radiographer working environment, US location understandexplore define Field Study By observing radiographers during their day-to-day routines, we gained an in-depth insight in their habits and needs. In the course of the project, questions were e-mailed to a broad audience for additional insights.

11. explore

12. Samples from the scenarios of use understand explore define Scenarios of use Based on the collected requirements during the field study, we described future interaction flows in scenarios of use. The scenarios illustrated the main tasks taking into account the future context of use.

13. Competing conceptual designs for the radiologist tool understandexploredefine Conceptual design We explored design alternatives using low-fidelity sketches. We verified the main design principles by applying the conceptual design to the scenarios.

14. Samples of prototype screens understandexploredefine Prototyping We refined the conceptual user interface design through iterations and adding more concrete, realistic data and controls.

15. Usability test setup at Danish location understandexploredefine Usability tests We conducted Usability tests with 40 radiographers in 10 hospitals in Europe and the US using detailed mock-up screens presented in typical workflow order.

16. define

17. understand explore define Engineering specification We created an elaborate specification document of over 1000 pages taking into account requirements from US FDA regulations. Based on the specification a summary with user interface patterns and guidelines was written for developers. Samples from the style guide for the user interface of the radiographer workstation

18. Outcome The interface designed by Namahn has been so successful that initiation and training time for radiographers has been reduced from days to a matter of hours. It has given Agfa Healthcare a keen advantage in a highly competitive market and is performing extremely well on the international marketplace.

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