Human Factors, Usability and Inclusive Design
Design is all about people
We strive to make people’s lives better, sometimes in a very small way – such as giving them back a few extra seconds to their day. Other times, in a much more significant way – helping develop devices that have a profound impact on the way people live their lives. We integrate Human Factors and Usability throughout the design process across each of DCA’s sectors, adopting domain-specific regulations and guidance. Emphasis is placed on moving beyond compliance to leverage the commercial benefits of more inclusive products and services that optimise system performance.
We are passionate about inclusivity, aiming to design for the widest spectrum of sensory, cognitive, and physical capabilities possible. We are working with strategic clients to ensure that we design with diversity in mind, ensuring that we consider how aspects such as age, gender, ethnicity, and culture impact different people’s ability, and desire, to engage with the products and services that we help to design.
Our Human Factors experts, working with our dedicated sector managers, have an in-depth understanding of the application of Human Factors, Usability and Inclusive Design during design development with the application of relevant standards and regulations when working in highly regulated environments across medical, rail and industrial settings.
DCA is a registered consultancy with the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors.
Build, test, refine
We believe that one of the best ways of understanding the relationships between people and products is to experience them. Using a wide range of methods, from simple card mock-ups, to VR, to full-sized train interiors, we create environments that allow us to observe and learn from people using and testing new ideas.
We frequently build rigs to explore physical, sensory, and cognitive capabilities. Our in-house prototyping team allow us to take on board insight, refine designs and get them back into people’s hand very quickly.
Measuring the impact
Wherever possible, we like to measure the impact of design change. Drawing from a comprehensive tool kit of methods, we build metrics of system performance and can re-evaluate them throughout the design process. We evaluate how things are done today, and how they could be done in the future. We measure things like efficiency, efficacy, safety, inclusiveness, flexibility, and satisfaction, so we can tell how well a system is performing today, inspire new ideas, and prove, with evidence-based metrics, how our designs can make things better for tomorrow.
Product comparisons
We often support clients with product usability benchmarking and Threshold Analysis. There are many reasons why you may want to compare two products, we can deploy a selection of our Human Factors assessment tools to assess and quantify relevant usability metrics for comparable products.
Threshold Analyses are specific to medical devices. A Threshold Analysis makes a detailed comparison between the user interfaces of two products to identify and assess the potential impact of any differences. When developing a new medical device for a generic drug, a Threshold Analysis is used to demonstrate that the proposed new device is suitable for substitution – meaning that the generic product can be prescribed in place of a legacy, approved, product without additional training or other HCP intervention.
This involves demonstrating that either:
- There are no differences between the two products
- The differences between the two designs do not impact critical tasks
- The differences that may impact critical tasks, do not influence the safe and effective use
User studies
The key factor that unites all user studies is a desire to learn from stakeholders. These might include those using the products (e.g. patients, consumers), they might also include people using the products for someone else (e.g. healthcare workers).
In the medical environment, we conduct two types of user studies, for Formative evaluations and for Summative evaluations. Formative user studies are used throughout the design process to explore how users interact with products in conditions that are as close to the intended use as possible. These formative user studies can also be used to answer specific questions - such as, ‘how are people likely to hold this?‘, and ‘what is the maximum force that they can apply while gripping the device?‘ Summative user studies form part of Design Validation, to help demonstrate that the product is safe and effective to use - that the use errors predicted are mitigated and that there are no unforeseen use errors.
Irrespective of the sector, user studies give stakeholders a clear voice in the design process. User studies ensure that the real-world needs of end-users are captured and explored and that the products stay on track throughout the design process.
The key factor that unites all user studies is a desire to learn from stakeholders
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