I received a reminder recently when I was made aware of the International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists' database of medical device recalls of what human factors professionals working in the area of human engineering for medical devices are often called on to do: clean up the mess created by a failed design process that somehow failed to incorporate research. (Note that medical device development isn't the only domain where this kind of failure occurs, however, the impact of medical device failures can often result in fatalities.) The persons responsible for designing an awful, unusable and in some case, useless user interface expect the usability expert to come in, take one look and create a beautiful user interface. This is absurd!
Consortium of Investigative Journalists' database of medical device recalls of what human factors professionals working in the area of human engineering for medical devices are often called on to do: clean up the mess created by a failed design process that somehow failed to incorporate research. (Note that medical device development isn't the only domain where this kind of failure occurs, however, the impact of medical device failures can often result in fatalities.) The persons responsible for designing an awful, unusable and in some case, useless user interface expect the usability expert to come in, take one look and create a beautiful user interface. This is absurd!
Writing from my own perspective, there is nothing that a usability professional likes to do less than to correct a failed design that resulted from a failed design process. This week I was asked to save a group of programmers and user interfaced designers from the monstrosities that they had created. What was particularly strange was that the leader of the project thought that I could just redesign something by looking at what they had created. It was bizarre. Unfortunately, I had to deliver several harsh messages regarding the design process and the design, that were not well received. (Nevertheless, that is my job.)
Here is the point I want to make clear to anyone who reads this: Process and the resulting design should be considered as two sides of the same coin. The outcome of a good design process generally results in a good design. A nonexistent or poor design process often times leads to a poor design and a design that gets worse with each design iteration when attempts are made to fix problems or incorporate enhancements.
The processes and design direction provided by HE-75 and IEC 62366 can serve as a foundations for research and designing systems with user impacts within nearly any industry, particularly in those industries where the potential for harm is likely.
The processes and design direction provided by HE-75 and IEC 62366 can serve as a foundations for research and designing systems with user impacts within nearly any industry, particularly in those industries where the potential for harm is likely.
