Emily Fishbaine

Challenge

A key part of prototype studies that yield rich insights is conducting these investigations in a believable environment. This allows the participant to suspend disbelief and engage fully in the task at hand. A project for a start-up involved extensive testing of capital equipment that would be used in an operating room. Our team created a simulated OR in our observation room for those studies.

Approach

After extensive observations in active ORs around the country, we met with subject matter experts, clinicians who regularly worked in ORs, so that they could walk us through a realistic equipment layout. 

Rapid Prototyping

I created a paper floor plan of our observation room (where the exercise took place) that resembled a board game. The “pieces” represented equipment commonly found in ORs.

The Co-Design Activity

The clinicians were asked to position the pieces on the floor plan to approximate the way they would set up the observation room as an operating room. While placing these pieces, they talked through their rationale, detailing which paths needed to remain clear and how the boundaries of the sterile field were maintained.

Outcome

The learnings from this activity allowed us to set up the simulated environment with confidence that what we were creating would be believable to users.