Abbe Kopra, senior researcher,  and Craig Scherer, senior partner and co-founder of Insight Product Development, co-author latest guest column in Med Device Online

With today’s hyper-focus on speed to market in medical device development, we’ve seen clients get quite frustrated when a new-to-the-world design doesn’t instantly prove “intuitive” to users. Innovation can often upset the apple cart, especially in cases where new and unfamiliar technologies are utilized to enable new functionality. Importantly, this less-than-optimal user experience can hurt the product’s adoption and lead to high rates of abandonment.

These disruptions to users’ expectations may necessitate designs that help them understand the need to complete a task in a new way. In the case of new technologies, this can be a sign that we’ve identified a potentially disruptive innovation to better serve user needs in the long run.

As medical device developers trying to stand out from our competition and better support our users, how can we be sure a product isn’t just different for the sake of being different? And, if we think we have a winner, how can we introduce it in a way that best supports our target audience, setting them up for optimal usability and success?

Check out the the full article in Med Device Online to learn five suggestions for making sure that new designs create safe, effective, and desirable outcomes.