Developing a User Interface for an Ultrasound Device Designed for Midwives and General Health Practitioners Situated in Low Resource Nations and Communities

Abstract

As part of the United Nations-mandated Millennium Goals, GE Healthcare wanted to create a compact, robust, and easy-to-use ultrasound that would provide better access to healthcare for mothers in low-resource nations. Vscan Access is an ultrasound device designed for midwives and general practitioners to assess early pregnancy risks for mothers who need it most. Chemistry worked with the GE Healthcare team to conduct ethnographic research in Indonesia, facilitate cross-functional creative workshops with multi-stakeholder teams, as well as developed and executed a complete design and testing of the entire front-end user interface. Vscan Access won the President’s Design Award in Singapore in 2016, and is now deployed across numerous developing nations in urban and rural communities around the world. This case study outlines the various challenges faced when developing a product intended for deployment in a mission-critical setting, employed by midwives and general health practitioners with varying degrees of expertise.