CuraVent is an intensive care ventilator that uses a hybrid interface and clear visual hierarchies to enable targeted user guidance even in critical situations.
Why?
How?
My role?
Benchmarking
In order to gain an understanding of the complex subject and to start the user research armed with specialist knowledge, we learned about human physiology and the mechanical structure of an intensive care ventilator. We then analysed ventilators from the current market leaders to get an overview of the interaction elements and functions. In this picture you can see the analysis of the Hamilton C6 and it's components.
Medical research
For our qualitative research, we spent one day at a cooperating intensive care unit to run interviews with four doctors and nurses. A detailed explanation of various devices was provided by an expert, and we were able to have an immersive experience by interacting with the products ourselves. These were our key insights we gathered throughout the research and the product vision we created based on them.
Key insights
Main idea
Product sketches
After the concept phase was completed, we sketched out the first ideas for the final product. Since we decided on a hybrid design, it was important to include both a large display and haptic elements such as quick action buttons and a rotary control as the main interaction elements. We implemented Quick Actions Buttons as an easy adjustment option for critical parameters during the ventilation.
Prototype
To make our concept tangible, we created a fully functional proof-of-concept prototype that shows the structure of the elements and interaction with the product. Since this is not a form prototype, the appearance differs from the sketches and CAD renderings. A lot of time was spent using rapid prototyping tools to make each element of the interaction experienceable.
Product features
Full interaction
This video shows the complete user flow, from setting patient characteristics and starting ventilation to changing parameters. It shows all possible interactions with the haptic elements and the display itself. After starting ventilation, users are taken to the main view. Numerous values and graphics give a quick overview of the ventilation and the patient's status. Different perspectives enable varying levels of detail.
Main Dial
Values can be adjusted on the display or by using four Quick Action Buttons. These buttons were implemented to solve the user's frustration of searching through multiple layers of information to change ventilation parameters. Users can modify four crucial and frequently needed values to quickly adapt the ventilation to their patients current state of health.
Quick Action Buttons
The main dial covers numerous user needs. On the one hand, it has deep grooves and a plastic coating to ensure sufficient grip when turning the dial quickly, even when wearing gloves. Secondly, it snaps into place when parameters are modified and thus provides feedback as to whether a value has been changed. The increments are software-controlled and adapt to the minimum and maximum values of a parameter. A value is confirmed by pressing the dial, which also provides click feedback. This helps users to actively confirm changes in ventilation and prevent incorrect value changes.
The madness behind
The prototype went through a number of iterations over the course of a few weeks. To enable its functionality, we utilized ProtoPie Connect to link our designs, which were created in Figma, with our hardware.