Chairside

As previously stated, the initial design was focused around using an iPad. For this, we went out to meet with Apple at their HQ in California, giving us an opportunity to show our initial concept and whiteboard with them directly. This led to us altering the design patterns for a new proof of concept, still built around the iPad, but adapting to their newer (at the time) Human Interface Guidelines.

The more we worked with this, the more we began to realize that we we’re trying to force a square peg into a round hole in the form of a touch device for each user instead of the desktop setup that it would inevitably shift to. Once the stakeholders were convinced and the change was made, we went through a complete design overhaul.

The first desktop concept was simple, grouping patients by section of the facility and which clinicians were assigned to them, but providing access to the entire patient list at all times. This meant that users could have a station at each patient, but still be able to quickly access or view other patient’s profiles from anywhere in the facility without the need to walk over to them for quick checks. This also meant less changing of gloves and time saved for minor edits or quick checks on the patients.

The design continued to take shape over the next several months; testing, gathering feedback, presenting the ideas to the stakeholders, but we kept hearing the same pain points over and over:

This led me to an epiphany while whiteboarding with one of the other designers and one of the key stakeholders/SME; we allow for a split screen and divide the required content into tiles that can individually be submitted. This would give the users the ability to complete the bare minimum required to start treatment, while also giving them the ability to compare pre-treatment, in treatment, and post treatment vitals at any time they want.

Testing for Chairside, and all CWOW/HWOW applications in general, we’re conducted throughout the design process. We had a dedicated team of UX Researchers that did the bulk of the testing, but at least once a month we would have the opportunity to join them and assist in the testing of our own, and others designs.

Several tools and tests were performed including explorative/assessment testing, which was typically moderated by one of the researchers while the rest of us watched and took notes. A/B testing, which was performed when we had more than one idea for a design and navigational path the user could take, and some guerrilla testing, where we would have a new concept or idea that we didn’t necessarily want to go through the whole process on, and instead would take sketches or very basic prototypes to the local facilities or share them remotely with SME’s.

The vast majority of these tests were recorded, which allowed us to also line up the videos, and identify hot spots where users were getting caught up, and see what their exact time-on-task was.

Due to both business privacy and HIPPA guidelines, those tests cannot be shown here.