human factors

Design Thinking

‘Patient-Centred’ Experience And Digital Transformation Technologies

December 5, 2019 Design

Summary

The message coming from every keynote, panel discussion, article or research study is clear that digital transformation is not just imperative for all enterprises but it will permanently alter consumer interactions with their products and services.1 Digital transformation is the application of digital technologies such as mobile data analytics and smart embedded devices to reinvent customer relations and business processes. Worldwide spending on digital transformation related technologies and services is expected to approach $2 trillion by 2022, according to IDC. 2 Hence, the healthcare industry as well, has to transform its processes to respond to the new realities of digital technologies in an increasingly competitive world by continuing to invest in digital technology. But at the same time, there’s a need to reshape patient-care operations in this dynamic environment. Amid the intricacies of digital sophistication, the clamour to put customer services and customer expectations at the centre of all digital and service interactions has grown stronger than ever before. Adopting a customer-centric mindset in unifying products and services through human-insights, and not through digital transformation, is an important piece in the customer experience endeavour.

In the wake of digital transformation, businesses are overlooking consumer behaviour favouring instant gratification through technology hoping customer loyalty and dollars will follow, but they’re missing a fundamental point. Instead of depending upon digital transformation as a means for delivering an exceptional experience they should be focussing on customer needs through gathering & relating human-insights to actual needs. It is therefore important for businesses to build a customer experience strategy that looks at finding insights instead of merely depending upon digital transformation for analytics — the better experience customers have, the more repeat and positive reviews they’ll receive while simultaneously reducing customer complaints and frustrations. 3

In this context, what should be the strategy for the healthcare industry to drive digital transformation from a ‘user-first’ standpoint? What measures must healthcare businesses need to adopt for catering to patient needs & expectations? What parts of their business strategy must need to change for encouraging a positive change & enhancing the quality of healthcare services with technology? Most importantly, could technology alone be adequate in solving human-centred problems? These and many more such conclusions around an overall healthcare optimization planning could be explored by applying relevant phases of the ‘patient-centred design model’.

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Understanding The Scope of Lean UCD Methodology

October 31, 2017 Design
from Using the User-Centered Design (UCD) and Human-Centered Design (HCD) Methodologies, this is an attempt to capture the meaning and to introduce the ‘Lean UCD’ framework.

As a consultant and architect, I’m privileged to be using both the User-Centered Design UCD) or Human-Centered Design (HCD) frameworks in complex projects, and it’s natural to have pondered over the difference between the two. These frameworks have helped me set aside deep-rooted biases and bring empathy into product designs which the end-users were delighted to use. I did write about the difference between Usability vs UX some time ago, though I always wanted to present a third approach to this methodology called Lead UCD that I predominantly use in the context of reactive product design strategy, in that, I’ve to strategize upon a user-friendly product within limited time and budget and with no prior knowledge of its background is critical. The challenge would be judging user behavior patterns purely based on cynical user data.

While bringing a user-centric focus on the problems individuals & teams often consider several frameworks to reach a consensus on the design in collaboration with cross-functional leads particularly in the guidance of a UCD expert. So what would be a better framework to follow – UCD, HCD or a Lean UCD? Read on.

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A CUA from Today

December 16, 2006 General

I suddenly realized there’s more dust on my keyboard then I had imagined. Anyway, the long leave from blogging was not without a reason. Off late I had been focusing hard to get my CUA certification which I finally did today. I have now become a Certified Usability Analyst. Just for information, CUA is a test for usability professionals which is preceded by a 4 part training course in various faculties, conducted by Human Factors International (HFI). They have been renowned for their work in the field of usability engineering for the past 25 years. Personally speaking, this certification has given a much needed impetus for my continuing research and interest in the field of human factors and interaction design. Thanks to all my lovely friends who had hoped for the best and prayed for me for this day :-)

Usability Training Workshop

January 20, 2006 Design

Human Factors InternationalI have been keeping busy these days with the User Centered Analysis and Practical Usability Testing workshops at Human Factors International (HFI). The course is very extensive and I hardly get time to spend at home these days. But I am happy that I have found something which I can pursue with great passion. These training sessions are enabling me to better understand the needs and the strategies that are currently being employed to design GUIs.

The User Centric Design course is an extensive one which deals with forming design strategies. These strategies are based upon some studies and surveys which the stakeholder (owner) undertakes before he embarks upon making a full fledged website. The study of design goals and other such criteria enables to better understand the tasks and thus design a better user experience. The Practical Usability Training course deals more with formative prototype testing and interviewing the affected user groups to understand their mental models when they view specific websites. Of course, this is a very shallow explanation that I have given here for both the courses but you can visit the website for more details on training and certification.

We have a large audience this time attending both the courses from all across the country and especially from the bigger Indian IT companies. This accentuates the fact that more and more organizations have started to look at usability as a very important factor for designing web and software applications.