It was great to have a fresh look at the UI after a nice, relaxing three-day weekend. I’d come to a standstill last week, having sketched up several UI layout possibilities after playing with my what-turns-out-to-be rather high fidelity Velcro/felt prototype. At the beginning of this week, the IncuBaby team met to select four of the most promising UI layouts to finalize and receive feedback on from the nurses in Malawi. At the same time, we’re preparing materials for an informal usability study here at Rice. So in addition to sketches of the four layouts, we thought our feedback sessions would be more beneficial if we showed different situations (warning lights and modes) on those 4 layouts to see which layout(s) best conveys the necessary information and alerts. The challenging part of designing the usability study for two different audiences is having to think about what kind of information Malawians would need and what information people around Rice would need to provide worthwhile feedback. I’ve created two different background information slides and lists of questions that may help us gather useful feedback. And now, I’m creating scripts for the studies so that they run smoothly; this includes when we show which layout sketches; when, how, and in what order we ask questions; and how much background information to provide.
Hopefully, I’ll be able to get some feedback this upcoming week!
I also wrapped up last week’s mini research project. The majority of the sources I found suggested placing the temperature sensor on the baby’s upper right abdomen. To document the sources, I made tables specifically for the research study sources and another that summarized all of the sources. We may consider sending them to doctors to ask if upper right abdomen is the recommended way to go.
Another challenge I’m facing this week is trying to quantify tightness. We’re running two studies to evaluate the accuracy of our temperature sensors – one on adults around campus and another on infants in a daycare. We will put on a strap with the sensor around the subjects’ torsos and collect temperature data. We’ll also be collecting temperature data from our gold standard temperature probe for comparison. We also need to ensure that we don’t introduce any other factors in order to obtain the best results from the study, and we found that varying the strap tightness causes changes in temperature data. So, I’m currently brainstorming ways to put on the strap with similar tightness for every run and then quantitatively record the level of tightness. We’re looking to get our patient monitor for the study sometime next week, so hopefully, I’ll have a solution for this by next week!
Oh! And I’m experimenting with LED light bars to see how the “thermometer” of the IncuBaby front panel might look!
