To avoid use errors when handling medical equipment, it is important to develop products with a high degree of usability. This can be achieved by performing usability evaluations in the product development process to detect and mitigate potential usability problems. A commonly used method is cognitive walkthrough (CW), but this method shows three weaknesses: poor high-level perspective, insufficient categorisation of detected usability problems, and difficulties in overviewing the analytical results. This paper presents a further development of CW with the aim of overcoming its weaknesses. The new method is called enhanced cognitive walkthrough (ECW). ECW is a proactive analytical method for analysis of potential usability problems. The ECW method has been employed to evaluate user interface designs of medical equipment such as home-care ventilators, infusion pumps, dialysis machines, and insulin pumps. The method has proved capable of identifying several potential use problems in designs.
By using an analytical approach it is possible to identify presumptive ergonomic problems without extensive empirical research. In most high-risk operations, long-shafted tools or a wheelbarrow were used, which emphasize a need to develop tools with better ergonomic design to improve the working situation. The limitation is that the ergonomics problems found are not finally validated. The results show where deeper empirical research is needed, both regarding how MSDs occur and how tools and environment contribute to physical problems.
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