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June 30, 2008
What If Steve Jobs Designed Medical Devices?
Posted by Keith McFarland at 3:12 PM
Amy Tenderich is a San Francisco-based journalist who runs the Diabetes Mine blog, a site that features diabetes-specific information, product reviews, and networking. She gained national notoriety last year when she penned an open letter to Steve Jobs asking him to apply his formidable design talents to the production of more aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly medical devises. In the letter, she laments the fact that medical-device manufacturers are "stuck in a bygone era; they continue to design these products in an engineering-driven, physician-centered bubble."
Now, Mr. Jobs may have been a little preoccupied with his iPhone redesign and price-point-reality-check exercise to commit the requisite neuro-cycles to the medical-equipment design quandary. So Ms. Tenderich cast the net a tad wider and invited the whole-wide-wired-world to the party. Seems like the would-be designers came up with some interesting ideas.
This whole thing got me thinking. When you contrast the pace and scope of innovation of a consumer electronic product like the MP3 player with a medical device like the glucose meter, the difference is staggering. The MP3 player is designed in a fiercely competitive, user-experience-driven process that charts disruptive innovations in terms of months if not weeks.
The medical equipment device is designed in a context that often involves third-party payments, insurance, and medical and government bureaucracies. And it allows designers to employ concepts from a bygone era. These products are designed in an engineering-driven, physician-centered bubble because these entities really are the customer, not the end user, and they will continue to demand innovation from a medical technology standpoint with little thought to user experience.
Design contests like the one initiated by Ms. Tenderich provide an interesting way to inject a little user experience adrenaline into the med-tech design process.
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excellent way to get the ball rolling by grabbing the attention of a powerful business man who can do alot of good to help mankind, good job Amy, now mabye you can kick cancer's butt too.
Perhaps this would have been a little more relevant about the time the first ipod came out. Over the past few years, high profile design firms such as design continuum, item, farm, frog, and insight have dove headfirst into medical Devices. The "problem" is the existence of stringent ISO and FDA standards... The enginering, design, and testing of medical devices extend the product development cycle far beyond that of consumer electronics. But really, isn't that better? Think about a bad experience you had with an MP3 player, now imagine that MP3 player is going in your heart to implant a stent.I want testing, anyway.
Bottom line, you can rest assured that teams of talented researchers, designers, and engineers are working at the above (and other) firms to provide products that deliver on aesthetics, user experience, and functionality.
Great design existed before Jobs
Another important distinction between MP3 players and medical devices is a little organization called the FDA.
From the FDA's point of view the most (only) important things are safety and efficacy. They don't care what it looks like or HOW it works. It's unfortunate that the market isn't bigger that might also help drive change.
Amy's competition is a huge step in the right direction. It raises awareness of design, devices can function and be attractive and easy to use. I can't wait to see what next year's entrants come up with.
Another thing to remember is that good design often means better usability. To continue the iPod example, the click wheel is utterly simple and intuitive to use, as well as contributes to the sleek look. Giving thought to user experience would likely improve the safety and efficacy that the FDA is concerned with.
If he did they would look gorgeous but not actually fit the hand of any known human. Anyone remember the imac hockey puck mouse?
I wanted to thank you for focusing attention on this competition. Love this post. Keep us updated on more things like this!
Fortunately there is and will be far more competition in the diabetes product category because the number of Americans diagnosed with diabetes is forecast to grow by leaps and bounds over the next decade.
This means that entrenched companies (who want to maintain dominant market share) and new entrants (who want to take a slice of the market) will launch new products; blood glucose monitors, lancets, you name it. And the way companies will get diabetics to switch brands is to offer something better and easier for them to use. While FDA approval is an important part of the process, this approval doesn't differentiate them from the competition. I think the contestants in Amy's competition are on the right track and hopefully a few of them are entreprenuers looking to bring a new product to life.
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