Analyzing How Devices Are Used [Review of "Contextual Inquiry for Medical Device Design"]

This book consists of 12 chapters. The introductory chapter defines contextual Inquiry as the analysis of interactions involving devices and people and the workplace. The term dates the initial use of the term to work published by Beyer and Holzblatt in 1998 or 1999. The focus in this chapter is the immersion, as far as possible, of the observer or designer in the milieu of use for the device being considered, either an initial design or a redesign, rather than in the noninteractive office of the device manufacturer. The primary objective of the immersion is to remove biases in a design or redesign process via an open study of the use of current devices and their shortcomings. For a designer in the medical device industry, this text is of use if the audience has not been trained properly in the techniques used. It gives good insight into techniques that can be used to avoid bias in the design or redesign of medical devices.