Top 10 Strategies for Designing Medical Devices

How can medical devices gain absolute market power and take the lead in the fiercely competitive market? In addition to extensive sales channels and excellent capabilities, excellent user interface design is the best marketing tool.

A successful medical device design is closely related to the quality of the user interface. Especially when the relevant R&D capabilities and application technologies become more mature and more and more competitors enter the market, the quality of the user interface will become an important indicator for product differentiation.

In short, a good user interface design should meet the needs of users and take into account the physical and psychological conditions of users. A friendly and convenient user interface can not only increase the convenience of use, but also reduce the error rate of use, so that medical equipment can play its maximum function and achieve the purpose of benefiting users. Of course, for manufacturers, their research and development behavior is more socially meaningful and economically valuable. So, how can we design a truly excellent user interface, and how can we evaluate the rationality of its design? Experts from the National Research Center of the United States have proposed ten design rules for this issue, which are detailed below.

Reduce the visual density of your display

Medical devices generally need to express a lot of information, which can easily make the display/operation interface look very crowded. All the information is squeezed together. Not to mention occasional users, even long-term medical professionals may not be able to get the required information at a glance or know how to use it correctly. Therefore, when designing the user interface, it is important to consider the configuration of the content and the retention of space margins. Appropriate white space will make the entire interface look clear and beautiful. There are several ways to properly reserve space for reference: put secondary information in the options using options or links, and select it when needed; reduce the size of brand identification images, such as brand logos, names, etc., without deliberately enlarging them to highlight the brand image; use simple graphics, try to make them 2-D flat, and do not use overly complex images; use blank space, rather than lines, to distinguish text content, and try to simplify the entire interface; use concise sentences to express information and avoid too much content.

Provide users with search tools and guidance

After moving medical equipment, some users cannot figure out where the information they just found with great effort has gone. The reason for this is that users do not understand the structure of the user interface at all. The National Research Center of the United States recommends placing prominent and meaningful titles on the main/sub-titles, such as "query", "settings" or "return to the main screen" and other easy-to-understand sentences; the query content can also be paginated, such as 15 of 1, 15 of 2, etc., so that users know roughly how much information there is. As for the search options or controls, they should be placed in an obvious and fixed position, so that the operator can quickly find the required function when needed, while reducing the testing time and the error rate of use.

Design a reasonable text area planning

The display screen of some medical equipment looks like a chessboard, with no order at all. Of course, sometimes an ingenious interface design may bring users a bright and pleasing visual experience, but in any case, orderly text area planning can easily achieve the most effective and comfortable effect. Try to make the instructions have smooth reading continuity; for example, a center-aligned and a left-aligned text block. Obviously, the left-aligned block reads much more smoothly, because after reading a line of text, the user naturally continues to read to the lower left without having to find the beginning again. In contrast, the center-aligned block looks much more chaotic. Therefore, regular text area planning will greatly improve the quality of the user interface.

Increase visual balance

The balance of the display interface is very important, especially on both sides of the vertical axis. The consistency of the sense of weight has a greater psychological impact on the operator. An asymmetrical visual plane will make people feel that the entire screen is tilted, or that something is missing; while a symmetrical visual plane looks neat and integrated, highly recognizable, and in line with user psychology. As for how to increase the sense of visual balance, there are the following methods: pay attention to the proportion of blank space and text blocks; reduce overly fancy emphasis methods, such as too many underlines, bold or 3-D graphics; place all content blocks (including blank space) in a complete block to give it a sense of integrity.

Avoid using multiple colors

In a user interface (including background and operating components), it is best not to have more than 3 to 5 colors. It is best to use light gray tones for large areas, such as light gray and white. Important operating components are expressed in higher saturation colors such as red, blue, and green, but there should not be too many colors and the area should not be too large, otherwise it will look overly chaotic and lose the original intention of emphasizing the key points.

Choose clear and generous fonts

It is best not to have too many fonts in an interface, and it is even more inappropriate to choose fonts that are too complex or weak, such as italics. The simpler and clearer the font, the better the recognition.

Use organizational categories

Experiments have shown that the tabular interface structure has the best recognition, and information with the same attributes should be summarized at the same level to achieve perfect classification and simple configuration.

Refined language expression

Use concise words and sentences to point out the key points. Narrative text will only make users lose patience and make the overall interface look complicated and difficult to understand.

Simple Icon

Avoid using complex images; pictographic codes are the best representation. The simpler the better, as long as it can arouse consensus among users.

Avoid inconsistencies in interface design

Whether using color or font to express a certain meaning, it must be consistent. Red represents danger and bold represents emphasis. It must not be used arbitrarily, otherwise it will cause confusion to users.

A successful medical device design is closely related to the quality of the user interface, especially when the relevant R&D capabilities and application technologies become more mature, and more and more competitors enter the market, the quality of the user interface will become an important indicator for product level differentiation; in addition, the safety of medical device use is also related to the quality of the interface design, because design defects will directly or indirectly cause errors during use, and in serious cases, may also cause injury or death to the user. Therefore, a product, especially medical products that are closely related to the human body, must be designed with absolute caution.

Of course, sometimes because the technology is not yet mature or the designer does not fully understand the needs of the user, it is inevitable that the design will not be perfect; but in any case, perfect and considerate user interface design should be regarded as the responsibility of the manufacturer or designer and should be proud of it. It is hoped that the above design rules can enable manufacturers to have clearer and more complete design guidance and concepts when designing medical products, and then develop more humane and convenient medical products to benefit mankind.