U N D E R T H E M I C R O S C O P E

MEDTECH GUI EXPERT

Dennis Lenard , a UX expert with 15 years in MedTech and industrial design , lectures at King ’ s College London and leads Creative Navy . Known for integrating cognitive science into his work , he collaborates with industry giants like Miele and Ford , all while finalising a design manual for medical devices .

With over 15 years in ergonomic design , what key moments or decisions have significantly shaped your career path in the MedTech and industrial design fields ?

As a UX designer , I refuse to be a trend follower . I don ’ t compromise when it comes to the quality of the work me and my colleagues hand over . I don ’ t abide by sacrificing usability to cut costs . I chose these sectors because I believe in them and I ’ ve experienced their need for improved usability first hand . Of course , there were many barriers to entry . Gaining access and building trust with established professionals meant a lot of hard work and advocacy for the best solution , not the cheapest one . You can ’ t force anyone to accept your design decisions , the hard facts must be on your side . I decided I wanted to put in the time and effort in order to be able to contribute to innovation and positive change , even if it meant studying dusk till dawn and making personal sacrifices .

As someone who mentors future UX designers at King ’ s College London , what emerging trends in UX design for MedTech are you most excited about , and why do you believe they hold potential for the future ?

Perhaps the trend that makes me most optimistic is the fact that more and more UX designers are manifesting a keen interest in working for the MedTech sector . Young people want to help out and they feel empowered enough by their knowledge and tools to fight for access to this once-exclusive domain . In the next 30 – 40 years , doctors won ’ t have to waste cognitive resources on their IT systems anymore .

Thankfully , medical decision makers are starting to be more open to improvements as well . It seems they ’ ve come around to the idea that poor usability in the medical sector is a major contributor to burnout among professionals . The vast majority of medical IT systems have made everything worse for both doctors and patients . We were sold the promise of a utopia and instead are living with dystopian services . That ’ s why I admire my students : they want to take back what they were promised .

AI is increasingly being integrated into various aspects of UX design . From your perspective , what are the most promising applications of AI in MedTech UX , and how do you see this evolving over the next few years ?

It ’ s clear that AI will be immensely important in both medicine and UX . However , the medical sector functions according to well-established processes , so integrating AI will definitely disrupt and challenge the status quo .

Medicine ’ s first contact with AI will be in non-clinical areas , like administration . For example , I see many healthcare providers implementing chatbots , which replace human interaction and attempt to shorten administrative processes . Decision makers are quickly charmed by the price point , failing to see that users might want or prefer something entirely different . Patients fail to access services because they can ’ t figure out the AI , and that failure frequently remains undocumented and unaccounted for . The user is always the one to deal with the consequences as the system keeps creating more hoops for them to jump through .

Similarly , AI will generate wireframes for medical devices , and decision makers will embrace the results because of cost considerations . This trivialises the importance of a

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