Tag: PDD
Testo 870 – Thermo Imaging Camera – Wins German Design Award 2016
We’re proud to announce that this month, the PDD designed T870 Thermo Imaging Camera, won the 2016 German Design Award.
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FDA: Outlook on legacy devices
Chris Vincent and I recently attended an AAMI training course held in Dublin on Human Factors for Medical devices. EU manufacturers and consultancies all attended with the hope of having some questions answered by the FDA.
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“Measuring usability”: The siren song of quantitative reasoning
How do you measure usability? How do you really measure the efficiency of interface characteristics and user satisfaction in a way that can feed opportunities to develop and innovate? As a usability consultant, it is not that uncommon to be asked to evaluate usability. Some would even go so far as to say it comes with the territory.
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Innovation trends in Pharma and Medtech
Earlier this week, I attended an event at Imperial College on Innovation in Medtech. The event was well attended by academics and a diverse group of industry representatives from pharma and medical device companies, start-ups, consultancies and investors.
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The promise of Eastern beauty
Continued global interest in East Asian skincare and beauty regimes has boosted the development of new products, and leading the way is South Korean cosmetics company, AmorePacific (named by Forbes business magazine as the world’s 28th most innovative company). The company’s Air Cushion technology has helped AmorePacific become South Korea’s top facial makeup brand. Since its launch in 2008, more than 50 million Air Cushion compacts have been sold, and in July this year AmorePacific signed a deal with Parfums Christian Dior to share the technology.
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Highlights from London Design Festival 2015: GEOMETRY RULES!
My favourite favourite things at this year’s London Design Festival (LDF) were the vivid and often in-your-face installations and products inspired by Memphis – the design movement founded in Milan, Italy in the early 1980s. Happily for me, designs channelling Memphis’s bold geometric forms, bright colours and hyperkinetic patterns were present at several of LDF’s venues.
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Why we need better UI in Professional Medical Devices
As a follow on from my previous blog, with more technology being used to treat patients, user interface (UI) design is key to making devices safe and effective. Patients aren’t the only ones who need good UIs however, Health Care Professionals (HCPs) are more reliant than ever on technology to do their job and this is only set to rise. They – more than most – need informative, error proof UIs especially considering errors kill 12,000 patients a year in the UK and no doubt cause complications for many more. Here are a few design recommendations tailored to designing devices with the needs of health care professionals in mind.
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Beauty and Brains: Hi-tech skincare devices
Star Wars. You either love it or – like me – you’ve never watched it. (No, not even one of them. Yes, I know Star Wars is a classic – shame on me). I am aware, however, that Episode 7, the next instalment of the global sci-fi phenomenon, is due for release in December this year and a bunch of Star Wars-themed products will soon be coming to a store near you.
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IED 70th anniversary at St James’s Palace
PDD demonstrates award winning Ocean Signal life-saving device to Prince Philip at the 70th anniversary of the Institution of Engineering designers (IED).
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IFA 2015: The UX take on the connected home
September is nearly here, meaning that the tech world will be once again converging on Berlin for the annual IFA convention. This is Europe’s largest and oldest tech convention and naturally, PDD will be attending.
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Why we need better UI in patient-used medical devices
It’s no secret that our healthcare bill is increasing. Worldwide, healthcare spending is at a record high, and an expanding and aging population means this shows no sign of slowing down any time soon.
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Human error or use error…Make the switch!
FMEAs (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis) are a common tool used in industry by device manufacturers to help members of R&D think of risk mitigation strategies to embed within their process whilst they are in the product development stages. FMEAs traditionally focus on system/component failures that can affect the operation of a device whilst UFMEAs (User Failures Modes and Effects Analysis) are intended to help members of R&D to focus on use-related errors. The term ‘Use Error’ has recently been introduced to replace the commonly used terms ‘Human Error’ and ‘User Error’, after the need to change the term was prompted by a high number of manufacturers commonly attributing errors to the users as opposed to investing in fixing error-prone device design.
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Feelgood super-sized cities
Congratulations go to Tokyo, 2015 winner of most liveable city as rated by Monocle magazine’s annual Quality of Life survey. Home to 38 million people, Tokyo is also the world’s largest urban area and qualifies for megacity status. Defined as a city with more than 10 million people, megacities are on the rise. According to the United Nations, there are currently 34 megacities in total, projected to increase to 41 by 2030.
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Human Factors: The art of asking a good question
In Human Factors the art of asking a good question that is non-leading yet to the point, simple yet scenario driven, open yet has boundaries to stop people going off on a tangent, whilst trying to get the user to answer as honestly as possible sounds like a breeze doesn’t it? Think again!
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Moody Technology – Tackling depression and anxiety to improve medication adherence
Last month, Walgreens, the largest U.S. pharmacy chain, launched its app for the Apple Watch. Walgreens’ is one of many apps designed to help address the costly and – in some cases – fatal issue of medication non adherence. Principally, the app is geared towards streamlining the process of refilling a prescription and also notifies patients to take their medications as prescribed.
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The colour of sweet: Using multi-sensory design to improve human experience
As someone who loves a good mash-up, I was keen to see (feel, hear, smell and taste) how Kitchen Theory’s collaborative gastronomic project fused the fields of gastronomy; food science, food culture, food history, multisensory flavour perception, and neurogastronomy into its first Multi-Sensory Gastronomy Seminar and networking event. The event brought together people interested in synaesthesia (“union of the senses”–a condition in which two or more of the senses are involuntarily and automatically joined together) and crossmodal interactions (how the brain integrates information across the different sensory modalities).
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Top tips on ‘Employment for Graduates’
This year the Product Design and Innovation Conference reached its fifth year. It provides a place for designers and manufacturers to meet and discuss innovation and the product design industry. This year there were talks from; Design Partners, TEAMS Design, Chauhan Studio, BAC Mono, McLaren Technology Centre, Lenovo, Bacardi Global Brands, Kinneir Dufort, Speedo Aqualab, Whipsaw Ltd. to name a few of the 33 companies that the speakers were representing.
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Mash up: Human-Centred Design & Business Model Canvas
A few weeks ago I posted a mash-of Larry Keeley’s Ten Types of Innovation and Alexander Osterwalder’s and Yves Pigneur’s Business Model Canvas (BMC).
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