Good design facilitates smooth interaction between technology and its users and increases the chances of making a profitable return.
Without a functional and appealing design it’s hard to commercialise new technology and develop distinct selling points, even if you’ve come up with a fantastic technical solution. Medical devices must also appeal to two very different group of users: 1) healthcare professionals and 2) patients and their relatives. This poses a challenge in itself.
Trying to guess the needs of each category of your users and how they react to different design features is not a good starting point for a commercially successful product design. Better then to partner with experts in the field with years of experience from user needs and expectations, as well as the entire design process from the initial paper sketches to prototypes and mass production.
For a designer it’s important to have a thorough understanding of the situation in which a product is used, and Shift Design & Strategy has a long experience of working with life science products for both young innovative start-ups and well-established, global players.
“Medtech innovation companies can leverage on our experience of design projects for global clients like Wellspect (formerly Astra Tech). It has given us extensive knowledge about the users of medical equipment and assistive devices,” says Per Bergström, Product Designer and Partner at Shift Design & Strategy.
Contributes to Profitable End-Results
For medtech products it’s important to look and feel genuine and give the healthcare professionals pride in using them. However, the features also have to be as friendly looking as possible to convey safety to patients and their relatives. “For Micropos Medical the design development from patient focused technical prototype to user relevant product was crucial to reach market,” says CEO Tomas Gustafsson at Micropos Medical.
”Technology focused companies are not always, and in detail, conscious about how people interact with their products functionally as well as emotionally. We’re the link filling that knowledge gap and can facilitate for the whole project group to make design decisions that give the product competitive edges,” Per Bergström comments.
”In addition, we’re a small and flexible organisation and can easily harmonise the design process to the bigger overall product development process.” he adds.
To successfully contribute to profitable end-results, the company has developed its own strategic design tool, which incorporates the client’s company, the product’s users and the product’s expression.
“Through good design, we do the technology justice and increase the chances of making a profitable return for companies developing products where the interface between advanced technology and people is a core issue. The outcome should always be the easiest, clearest and most pragmatic way of communicating brand- and product values,” says Carl Hampf, Co-founder of Shift Design & Strategy AB.
