Part Two: More on Human Factors and the Future of HMI | The Tech Between Us

The Tech Between Us
HMI Part 2

Raymond Yin
Welcome back to The Tech Between Us. We’re jumping right back into our conversation about human machine interface and human factors with Allison Strochlic, Senior Research Director for Emergo by UL. To catch up on part one of our conversation, visit our Empowering Innovation Together website.

So you mentioned that some OEMs do have their own human factors teams and are taking this early part of the design process seriously. Are they going through all the steps that you've been talking about? The rigorous trials and the iterations? Do you find them going through all those or is it more the lip service?

Allison Strochlic 
I wish. That sounds dreamy, Raymond, really does. It sounds great. No, they're not. I would say that manufacturers are coming up. Some of them do have their own human factors teams. I was just speaking with a colleague earlier today about a customer who's really invested in human factors, and they do a lot of work, and they really pay a lot of attention to human factors. We have other customers who, it's lip service, they find out they need to do this thing for the FDA, they need a report that says HF validation test on it. And boy do they hope it can be done quickly and the results are good because they don't have a lot of time. And so, there really is a range anywhere between those points because there are some people who still, even though this final FDA guidance, I'll just come focus on the US again for a moment, even though this final FDA guidance came out in 2016, there are still people who are not integrating it as part of their development effort.

And so, doing it early and often is the path to success. I'm going to go ahead and say after almost 20 years doing this, that is a fact. To start earlier and do a lot of it and iterate it, is the way to go both from a regulatory perspective and a commercial and market competition perspective. But I do think there’s still a bit of…people are still coming up that learning curve, the path to human factors, enlightenment, if you will. And I do think that medical experience is a little bit of a lag compared to some other industries where there's more competition. So like consumer automotive for example, where you need your users to adore and love your products. And so, that is the primary driver. Whereas there are still companies who are focused on developing a safe and effective product, which is of course critical, but you really can't do that without the users and you're missing a big piece of it if you're just focusing on that final checkbox.

Raymond Yin 
Right. Just… you got it. 

Allison Strochlic 
Exactly. And you can't check the box that easily because the product speaks for itself. So, in some cases, if the product is an engineering marvel, but no one knows how to turn it on or start the treatment, it doesn't do a lot of good in the end, right?

Raymond Yin 
So, it sounds like the medical industry, from what we've been talking about, has very specific steps for an OEM to get to a good product. How are the other industries like you mentioned, automotive or consumer? How's everybody else doing with that?

Allison Strochlic 
Yeah, so I think it is quite a range. I actually am not that familiar in the consumer space, relatively speaking, we've worked on some consumer products, and I know that there are organizations like the CPSC that have rules in place around product safety, for example, for cribs and bassinets and things that are used for childcare. I know in automotive is also a pretty highly regulated field when it comes to human factors engineering. So, I think in the ‘60s and ‘70s, in particular, there were a number of standards focused, published on physical ergonomics, which of course that's what we had physical ergonomics and designing around anthropometric data. So, I have a colleague who used to work in the automotive industry for about a decade in the human factors space. And when she first joined the team, I love this term she taught me called, “the occupant package,” which apparently refers to the cabin or where passengers are in cars. And so that's random trivia. If that comes up in your next trivia night, you can think of me. But there are a lot of firm standards and regulations around applying human factors to automotive design. So, for example, thinking about how seats are designed, how far you can reach the size of certain things, making sure that the vehicle you're designing can be used safely and effectively by the consumers. There are a lot of standards and regulations released by NITSA. And so, they have a lot of items that initially started out related to physical ergonomics and anthropometric data. And then in the 1990s there were additional standards and guidances coming out related to distracted driving and cognitive processing and workload. So, what is the workload of a driver? How do you manage that and how do you design around that? And the interesting thing about the automotive industry or one of the many interesting things is that they have this safety component like medical devices do. And a little bit different than medical, is more like consumer, that they need their products to be loved and adored. 

So in the medical industry, of course, you want someone to love using your product. Although, to be fair, I hope that I, family, friends don't need to use some of our customers products, right? But the automotive industry is highly competitive. And so I actually ended up making a selection when I last bought a car a number of years ago now based on the user interface, which maybe because that's my job is not surprising, but I was between these two cars, these two finalists vehicles, and I was looking at the controls and the screens and the user interface, and I ultimately picked one over the other. And I said to the guy of the dealership where I wasn't going to buy, I said, no, I just don't think it's the right fit for me. And he said, well, why? What's wrong with it? And I said, well, I don't really like the screens. There are these two screens. One of them is a touch screen, one of them has controls. It's not really clear what functions on what screen. And he's like, well, you'd get used to it. And this is at the crux of human factors, you don't want to design a product that … it works and people can use it, and they have to get used to some things that are kind of hard, kind of confusing, but they'll adapt. You want to design your product around the user so they don't have to adapt so they can just use it and use it correctly and safely. 

But coming back to your question, the automotive area does also have strict regulations, and then they also have this commercial imperative to be competitive. Whereas when it comes to the medical products, they have these strict regulations. And, while there are some consumer medical products, which maybe I'll get to in a minute, if you're designing a hospital bed or an infusion pump or a patient monitor that's used in a hospital, the nurses and the doctors who are going to be using those products don't actually usually get a say in their procurement process. And so, there's less of a motivation for some of those manufacturers. Usability and user satisfaction is not necessarily going to drive their commercial success, whereas for automotive it is. So, it's really kind of a two-pronged focus that automotive has. 
Coming back to medical, one thing I'll mention is there are all these products that are coming along that are kind of tiptoeing the line between medical and consumer products. So, there's beauty, health and wellness products, masks and acne masks, and smartphone apps that connect to a medical device or a fitness tracker or something like that. There are these apps where you can transmit data to your healthcare professionals or to family members. And so, there is more competition for products in this consumer-adjacent space that I think will further increase the extent to which we're hopefully seeing user-centered design taking place. And when you have those products or when there are medical devices intended for home use that are still prescription, not over the counter, I'm glad to say there's been this kind of transition - several years ago now - where there's more designing around the user. Because the way that first started when medical devices were going home is, oh, we have this dialysis machine that's used in the clinic. Let's start sending people home with it. I mean, it wasn't that flippant. Certainly, the companies had training programs and oversight. I don't want to pretend they didn't, but the user interface had been designed for clinical users and was now being put in the hands of lay users. And now we're seeing more products designed for home use by lay people, which is different.

Raymond Yin 
Yeah, I can imagine. And when you were telling your story about the infusion pump. Can you imagine the similar to your situation going to the car dealership? Can you imagine a nurse or a doctor? It's like, no, no, we don't want that. We don't like the user interface on that pump. Bring us another one.

Allison Strochlic 
They don't have that option, but there are some products for which there may be more competition on the market for certain medical devices that consumers do get to choose, but this is a hospital bed. They better be able to figure out how to lift and lower it pretty easily, right? 

Let's hit pause for a moment to highlight another of Mouser's articles that dives into the technology of HMI including touch, gesture, and even brain-computer interfaces and explains how each have been implemented. Read, "Human-Machine Interfaces in 2024 & Beyond: The Rise of HMIs" and other pieces by visiting mouser.com/empowering-innovation. Now let’s get back to the conversation as we discuss the future of HMI and human factors.

Raymond Yin 
Taking into all the considerations of human factors, where do you see that technology or where do you see those interactions moving in the future? Is it more in-depth? Do you see more of that happening?

Allison Strochlic 
So, I think where we're going is there's just always more, there's more stimuli, there's more connectivity points, there's more communication. More is not always better, but I think it's a reality that we need to try and manage. And so, similar to how we have our phones on do not disturb right now to help us manage that piece of the stimuli, I think we need to be continually concerned about how the user manages those things. And some of them are outside of our control, right? You might be designing a product that's used in a fairly constrained environment and you might think, well, someone is just using my product, but think about the environment that they're interacting in, which is becoming increasingly more complex and noisy and distracting, whether it's the home or a clinical environment or out on the road where you're driving. I think there's a lot of increase in connection points and communication among systems and among people that just complicates things and introduces these additional variables that can interfere with the happy path use of a product. So, whatever you're developing, I think that's a key thing to keep in mind is your product is not going to be used in a vacuum, even if you want it to be.

Raymond Yin 
Yeah, it's interesting. Because I've always felt that there are just way too many ways to get somebody's attention these days. I mean, I don't need to be available 24/7 to everybody that I know. 

Allison Strochlic 
A hundred percent. And I think that's why users should have control over the things they're notified about. And unless it is safety critical, I shouldn't be able to snooze - if my phone is connected to a continuous glucose monitor - I shouldn't be able to snooze alerts for when my blood glucose level goes severely in the opposite direction. So, there's some things that as designers, you need to push through to the user kind of like, sorry, I know you might be busy, but I don't care. I need your attention. Medical devices, automotive, aviation radars and such. But there are other areas where I think it's important to design products in that broader, more complex, more messy context of someone's real life. I think we are all designing products for a more complex and dynamic use environment, whatever that environment is. And I think that can lead to mistakes and oversight and errors that could have consequences.

Raymond Yin
That's it for today's portion of the podcast. Thank you for listening to The Tech Between Us. To explore further into the topic of human machine interface and Mouser's rich content on this subject, visit our Empowering Innovation Together page for videos, technical articles, and more at mouser.com/empowering-innovation.