The LEG (London Ergonomics Group) and the UK UPA (Usability Professionals’ Association) are excited to announce a joint event around the topic of Medical device usability. The evening will showcase the exciting work going on in this area and illustrate the crossover of our disciplines. Hosted at UCL on the 26th January 2012, the event has some great speakers from the usability and ergonomics industries. Doors open at 6.15 pm for a 6.45 pm start. Following the presentations there will be time for questions to the speakers as well as a chance to network and enjoy some refreshments. We have lined up:

Patrick Jordan

Pat Jordan is a specialist in user-centred design, branding and marketing. He has honorary chairs at City University London and the University of Surrey and formerly had chairs at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Leeds.

He is a consultant to many of the world’s most successful companies and to the third sector (charities and voluntary organisations). He was an advisor to the UK government from 2000 until 2010. This included being head of Customer Insight for the NHS.

Clients include: Starbucks, Microsoft, Samsung, Gillette, P&G, Unilever, Siemens, Philips Electronics, Nokia, Ferrari, Renault, Nissan, HSBC, Masterfoods and Sunbeam.

Patrick has extensive experience in health psychology, health policy and requirements specification for medical devices. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine in 2009.

Patrick will be speaking on the subject of people-centred design for health and wellbeing. As well as looking at the design of medical devices, this will cover a broad range of issues including the design of the services, systems, products and messages that affect people’s health.

Polly Shelton from PDD

Polly is a Human Factors and User Experience consultant at PDD Group in West London. Since graduating in ergonomics from Loughborough university, she has applied the human centred design approach to a range of physical and digital products and systems. She now specialises in the medical field, working alongside designers, engineers, researchers and risk management to integrate usability and human factors into the product development cycle. 

Polly is going to be discussing the human centred design process as it applies to medical devices. She will outline the process, regulatory requirements in Europe and the US and talk through some case studies, finishing with some top tips for conducting and analysing usability tests of medical devices.

Matt Pattison MSc, BSc, BA, MCSP, Ergonomist

Matt is a co-founder of 7bn (formerly Matt+John, People Centred Innovation). 

An ex-clinician, Matt has worked across medical settings in the UK, Australia and Zimbabwe. Today, Matt specialises in design and development in Health and Wellbeing having worked as a senior Human factors specialist at PDD, Engine and 1HQ prior to 7bn. 

Matt has extensive experience of running complex global and local innovation programs for the likes of Smith & Nephew, Novartis, Nokia, Philips Medical, Mercedes Benz, Mundipharma and Vocollect Healthcare Systems, amongst others. He uses behavioural observation to uncover business opportunities throughout his consultancy work and has carried out extensive projects in varied environments across the UK, US, India, France, Germany, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Brazil, South Africa, China and South Korea. 

Matt is also an expert reviewer for the Applied Ergonomics journal around issues of inclusive design and medical product design.

Chris Vincent from the CHI+MED project at the UCL Interaction Center (UCLIC)

Chris Vincent is a research associate working on the CHI+MED project at the UCL Interaction Center (UCLIC). Chris aims to understand how industry can benefit from HCI practice and support methods that contribute towards safer interactive medical devices. Prior to joining UCLIC, Chris applied human factors principles to the design and evaluation of fast jet decision-support aids. 

Chris's talk is entitled "Designing for Safety and Usability: Challenges in Adopting User-Centred Techniques when Designing Medical Devices and Systems."

Recent alerts and recalls regarding medical devices highlight the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to equipment design. Ergonomics and usability professionals are well placed to contribute and there are resources that allow developers to take account of the interaction between users, the tools that they use and the environments in which they live and work. We report on an interview study involving professionals from major manufacturers of medical devices, to better understand their development practices and the external forces that shape those practices. For example, manufacturers will provide devices engineered to meet a generic need, however it is impossible to anticipate all combinations of user and usage. Results are divided into six themes. These are: collaborative working practices; understanding the user and their situation; providing adequate justification for the adoption of a user-centred approach; provision of clear guidance and support; communication of mandatory controls and industry wide standardisation. We will provide examples relating to collaborative working practices and highlight the importance of ensuring that techniques are adequately justified, applied at the correct time, aligned with the development lifecycle and easy to adopt.