Functional and sensible: Patient monitoring alarm tones designed with those who hear them

Abstract

This is a case study in participatory design of alarm tones for the Philips IntelliVue patient monitoring system. Through interviews and workshops, we asked clinicians and other stakeholders what mattered to them as we designed new tones. We distilled responses into criteria with which to evaluate new tone options that we created by adjusting the tones’ pitch, timbre, and other parameters. In surveys, participants compared these options using the criteria distilled from interviews. The results were: 1) new tones that stakeholders judged to be improvements over the originals, and 2) criteria for evaluating future tones, based on “functionality” (i.e., their ability to be heard, understood, and prompt response) as well as “sensibility” (i.e., avoidance of unintended consequences: annoyance, fatigue, patient distress). We found that we could engage stakeholders meaningfully in the definition and design of “better” tones. We also found it possible to make tones that are both functional and more sensible.