MSc. Design for Interaction, TU Delft
Digital Interface Design of Mobility Scooter
Sunrise Medical Sterling Elite2 Plus Mobility Scooter for the Middle-Aged Group
Sunrise Medical x Technical University of Delft, Netherlands
Team
Ankita Arora, Avishya Arali, David Cheng, Jitske van Leusen, Qianhui Liu
Tools
Figma, Miro, Adobe Photoshop, Solidworks, Procreate
Year
2023
Collaboration
Background Study
The STERLING Elite² Mini Mobility Scooter is a compact and versatile personal transport device designed for individuals seeking enhanced mobility and independence.
The Challenge
The design challenge focused on redesigning a modernized scooter design for young middle-aged (45-60) users that aligns with their lifestyles 15 years into the future. The current scooter has usability issues such as difficulty stopping on slopes, hand strain during prolonged use, and challenges with precise control in crowded areas.
"The aim is to empower users with autonomy, ensuring they feel in control and safe while riding the mobility scooter. The design should be intuitive, providing clear feedback on its functions to both the user and their surroundings."
Difficulty stopping abruptly or on slopes
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Long usage causing strain in controlling
Challenges with precise control in crowded areas
The Impact
The resulting design creates a positive impact by increasing independence, ease of use and ergonomic design
Increased comfort and usage
Design Outcome
The resulting redesign prioritizes user comfort, safety, and autonomy, ensuring that individuals can navigate their daily lives with greater ease.
Design Process
The design process was divided into three major phases. In the first phase, the problem was defined with some interviews and small user tests, the second phase with design goal, ideations, and concept development, and the third phase was the redesign and final prototype tests followed up by recommendations for the company.
01. Define
An individual with breast cancer navigates numerous responsibilities, including consulting healthcare providers, undergoing examinations, understanding the illness, managing medications, making decisions, and engaging with a network of people, often creating a complex web of interactions.
How do they navigate this complexity, managing multiple interactions and decisions post-diagnosis?
How do they make decisions in moments of vulnerability, when emotions run high?
As a designer, how can I simplify the process of accessing complex medical information for them?
02. User Research
Research Methodology
To understand the unmet needs of individuals with breast cancer, I conducted 25+ qualitative interviews and mapped the breast cancer care journey and experiences with the help of the Metro Mapping Tool (Metro Mapping, n.d.) and other mapping activities. The insights generated from this phase helped define the design principles for the ideation session.
Metro Mapping
The metro map was co-created with an oncologist, a surgical oncologist and a healthcare designer from Panton to gain insights into the information flow within the breast cancer care pathway. The map has four layers: 1) Layer Metro which maps the cancer care trajectory. 2) Layer Information which is divided into four components-information provided, channels of information, goals of information, and information collected. 3) Layer Experience and Emotions which maps the emotional experiences of the individuals during the diagnosis process.
Metro Mapping: Information Map in Breast Cancer Care
Qualitative Interviews
04
Healthcare Providers and Nurse Practitioners
07
Representatives of Research Institutes and Cancer Organisations
02
Companions (Family members of individuals)
07
Individuals with Breast Cancer
02
AI Experts
Thematic Analysis of the Interviews
Mapping Activities
During the research, a variety of mapping activities were conducted to explore key aspects such as the sources of information, the level of trust placed in those sources, and their accessibility. These activities provided valuable insights into how individuals interact with and rely on different information channels.
1. Categorisation of Sources of Information, 2. Sources of Information Based on Trustworthiness and Accessibility, 3. Preferred Sources of Information, 4. Level of Trust on the Preferred Source of Information, 5. Preferences on the Type of Information Needs
Quotes from the interviews
"She said, “now I have a new job because the job is now breast cancer."
- Representative from Patient Organisation
"
- Healthcare Provider
"Sometimes the information is too hard to understand. And that’s not easy."
"I think the world, this hole opened up and I just fell like several levels through the floor."
- Individual with Breast Cancer
"I’m not educated as a physician. I think some of the abbreviations were new to me [...] I think it’s a lot of professional language that you are suddenly confronted with."
- Individual with Breast Cancer
"
Key Insights
01.
Overwhelming Nature of Cancer Diagnosis
02.
Nature of Information: Complex and Abundant
05.
Short Duration of the Consultation Sessions
06.
Avoid Joining the Patient Organisation
The Unmet Needs
Despite the support available from various sources, the overwhelming nature of cancer diagnosis makes individuals feel isolated and highlights the need for more support that can address their information and emotional needs. These needs are interconnected and interact continuously with each other. To reduce uncertainty, they go look for information and due to the nature of illness and the information it presents, they need emotional support. The findings also complement the literature study. Although there is an overlap between these needs, they vary from person to person and hence require more personalised support.
03.
Influence of Seeking Information from Various Sources
04.
Variability in Seeking and Understanding Information
07.
Variations in Information-Seeking Behaviours
08.
Varied Emotional Support and Coping Strategies
The Design Principles
To conclude the research phase, I created a set of design principles.The design principles serve as a foundation for ideation
Assist in Making Information Clear and Easy to Comprehend
Understand the Emotional State and Address the Emotional Needs
Foster Approchability and Affective Interaction
Provide Personalised and Relevant Information
Ensure Transparency, Reliability and Trustworthiness
03. Ideate
With the findings of the conducted research, the outcomes of the needs of people and the formulation of the design principles, the next
step was to create a base for the design. A design goal was formulated based on the overarching research question to carry out the design explorations.
“To create an AI-driven intervention that supports people with breast cancer in dealing or preventing information overload post-diagnosis”
Design Facilitation Workshops
Design Workshops
02
10
Participants
I conducted two design facilitation sessions each with a distinct group, to gather diverse insights on the support needs of individuals.
With fellow design students
With healthcare designers at Panton
Ideations and Brainstorming
During ideation, I began by formulating "How To" questions for each design principle to explore potential solutions and guide idea generation. A brainstorming session followed, focusing on concepts addressing users' informational and emotional needs. This process yielded six distinct ideas, two of which shared functionalities but differed in delivery mediums. The ideas were evaluated using the Harris Profile, leading to the selection of a final design direction.
Design Direction
In the current interaction, individuals consult healthcare providers, receive documents, and seek additional information to reduce uncertainty. However, this often leads to fragmented, overwhelming, and one-dimensional information, causing information overload.
The desired interaction with 'My Cancer Companion' minimizes reliance on unreliable sources by retrieving trusted information and presenting it in simple, clear, and interactive conversations. It centralizes accurate information while offering empathetic communication.
Current Interaction
Desired Interaction
Design Outcome: Bremo
Bremo breaks the traditional, one-dimensional approach of static documents by offering interactive, conversational access to information, from multiple reliable sources. It also serves as a sounding board where individuals can share their feelings and concerns. It is envisioned as a secondary source of information to be accessible via smartphones.
04. Design
Introduction of Bremo during Consultation Sessions
Bremo will be introduced to people with breast cancer during consultation sessions through the following steps:
Wireframing
3+
Iterations
Prototyping
Prototypes
10+
1
2
3
4
Ensuring secure access through government-authorized DigiD login
Conversational interactions to ask and clarify medical questions
Compiling a personalized question bank to prepare for the next medical consultation
Recording consultation sessions to revisit and listen later
05. Evaluate
Bremo was evaluated with three distinct user groups to ensure a comprehensive understanding of its usability, feasibility, and potential:
1. Individuals with Breast Cancer: To evaluate the usability and overall user experience, ensuring the design addresses their needs effectively.
2. Healthcare Designers from Panton: To assess its integration within the Dutch healthcare system using a Desirability, Feasibility, and Viability framework, ensuring alignment with system requirements and user expectations.
3. AI Experts: To explore the technical capabilities of AI and identify opportunities for further enhancement in supporting users.
"I think you found something that there's a gap and then it's valuable. I like that it's very integrative with various established data sources."
- Individual with Breast Cancer
"
“I would maybe say this intervention is very useful because you can use it as a recording app for your conversations and have it summarize it, and also have the only information that you need in one app then is each, it could make our complete patient journey a little easier and even and we reduce some of the stress.”
- Healthcare Designer from Panton
"
"It has the potential to be very effective. It could be very good at summarisation."
- AI Expert
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