Bringing user-centered design to the next-generation sleep therapy device
Planning and conducting user research to define the form and feature sets, refine industrial designs, define user requirements, and refine interaction designs of the next generation sleep therapy product.
PROBLEM
The home healthcare business at Philips Healthcare decided to build the next generation sleep therapy machine (known as a CPAP). We needed to answer the questions such as what should it look like? What features do we keep or remove? How can we improve the user experience and improve our holding in the market?
OUTCOME
The final product is called DreamStation, which was awarded an iF Design Award in 2016.
It is a patient-driven solution. The features and interactions are designed for ease-of-use and a consumer-type of visual appeal meant to overcome the medical stigma and help increase patient adherence.
METHODS
User feedback loops baked into iterative design process
1-on-1 user research in bedroom-like environments to replicate context
Interviews with both patients and healthcare providers
Focus groups with patients and interviews with providers globally
MY ROLE
Primary design researcher, responsible for planning and conducting user research.
Worked closely with design lead, interaction designers, and industrial designers.
Presented design recommendations to business colleagues, engineers, and product manager.
Defining the form factor
We conducted multiple interviews and focus groups with both patients and providers, in the US and globally, to select the form factor's architecture based on first impressions, aesthetics, and perceived usability.
In addition to focus groups and interviews, we also conducted interviews in-context (bedroom-like environment) with patients and the team to assess the actual usability of the form factor when it came to a bedroom-like environment.
The team was able to make a confident choice in regards to the architecture and move forward with the design.
Defining the architecture for the UI
The interaction designers developed scenario cards for different types of interactions. We conducted the interviews with new users (patients who were new to therapy), seasoned users (patients who had been longer on therapy), and therapists to understand and identify the needs of these different types of users.
Refining the physical touch-points and interactions
Once the team had an architecture, they had to start designing the details, which included the interaction of filling up the water tank, managing the hose, accessing the slots for the modem and SD cards, the angle of the screen, attaching and detaching the power outlet, etc... All these design details underwent iterative design loops and user tests with both low and high fidelity prototypes to assess the ease of use of each design. At times we would use existing products (both ours and competitors) to compare whether the new design was better or worse. The user research output would be used to make decisions with the product manager, marketing, and engineers.
Refining the interaction design
Same goes for the UI. The interaction designers designed a couple of concepts and had an interactive prototype that we could use in user tests with both patients, experts, and therapists. With experts, we conducted user interviews where we shared 2-3 concepts to get their feedback on the content and layout of information. With both users and non-users, conducted user research in which we assessed the level of difficulty in completing certain tasks to assess the ease-of-use of the UI.
