The project commenced by getting hands-on with the current spinal implant system, using anatomical models while discussing textbook and common procedural practices. We invited an extended team of client stakeholders to share their thoughts on the market and engage in a knowledge gap identification activity to illuminate research questions.

We continued by benchmarking a subset implant systems available on the market today. Here I collaborated with the client project lead to identify the competitive set and align around key parameters for benchmarking. I then directed my team including an Industrial Designer and Human Factors Engineer to scour publicly available resources to understand what the other systems offered technically and what the competition was promoting. I then highlighted and presented a set of key takeaways and design recommendations based on our findings.

I then embedded within the client project team to engage in user research. Here we sought to understand the clinical workflows and identify unmet needs and pain points related to their current spinal implant system.

With the client team’s support, I then led a series of cadaver labs with surgeon stakeholders at the client’s facility. This phase of research concluded with the delivery of a research report highlighting our learnings and design recommendations to the team.

Finally the project concluded with the development of a design requirement document for the spinal implant system. Here I worked closely with marketing and engineering stakeholders to create a template and capture the design requirements for every feature and attribute of over fifty components. We pushed to incorporate a good-better-best mindset and consider ways to not only match the competition or meet the user need, but consider ways to challenge conventions and elevate the user experience.