OTOPLAN®
About Project
This extremely powerful tool for otologists to plan cochlear implantation, outgrew its original UI. With new features being added and the creation of a product line for more otological products, I was requested to join the team and completely overhaul the design and establish the foundations of the whole new product line with OTOPLAN. In the end, a new design system was defined, and OTOPLAN's new design optimized its scalability and reduced the user's cognitive load by simplifying work flows and the UI.
First Usability files
Oct 2020 - Jun 2021
First Usability File prepared for MDR and FDA. Both applications were approved, and the usability documents passed without a single comment.
OTOPLAN 3.0
The beginning of a new era
Sep 2021 - Jan 2023
Having worked as a designer for other CASCINATION's products (CAS-One IR) and as a design consultant for MED-EL on some some initial software drafts, it was requested by MED-EL's Head of Image Guided Surgery and Surgical Tools (Masoud Zoka Assadi) to be the designer of OTOPLAN's next version. A game changer.
I was granted control over the design, which allowed me to temporarily hire an experienced freelancer as support for the initial phase. This incredible opportunity enabled us to completely analyse every single page of the software and rework its design to optimize its usability. OTOPLAN is a very complex product about a medical field that I only knew from the top level required for its technical documentation. Now I had to dive deeper than ever.
Process
We followed the standard Design Thinking
- RESEARCH AND DEFINITION
We investigated the users (empathy maps), stakeholder's expectations (surveys), and deconstructed each page (affinity diagrams for our design comments and MOSCOW to prioritize each task...). During the analysis of each module, we were in constant contact with the subject matter experts, to ensure that we fully understood the requirements of each part.
- IDEATION, PROTOTYPE AND TESTING
We brainstormed ideas, filtered them and audited them against the statements concluded during the definition state to confirm that each requirement was met. Prototypes were user tested with the subject matter experts, and later on presented to the stakeholders for their confirmation.
- ITERATE
Repeat until everything was clear and approved.
- HANDOVER
The software was divided into features or modules, which once approved, I handed over to the developers and reviewed each pull request as the design quality check.
Challenges
Data management is the space where all the data comes together and essentially the starting point in the app. It quickly became clear that it had to be carefully structured to present a complex and hierarchized data in a simple and intuitive way.
Simplifying the UI and ensuring scalability
- Before
- After
Processes
New features
3D audiogram
The classic graph where audiologists plot the patient's hearing capacity was translated into the 3D space for an all-in-one experience of the data. Since the data in a normal audiogram is coded in color, line types and symbols it was a challenge to convey all of these factors in just one view and model.
Fusion
Milestones
- This is the first of a new product line, so in the initial stage we established also a new Design System
- In the middle of the development, we had the opportunity to perform a Formative Evaluation and test out the most critical features with real users
Result
A sneak peak was presented as one of the key reveals from MED-EL in Dubai during the most important ENT congress: IFOS.
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