Usability innovation brings stronger vitality to ultrasonic knife

The ultrasonic scalpel is a minimally invasive surgical instrument that is quite popular in the clinical field in China. In the spring of 2023, CMEF, many enterprises are releasing their latest generation of ultrasonic scalpel. The market can be described as a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend.

Ricky Surgery (now Health Care) is developing rapidly in the field of minimally invasive surgery in China, and its core technical capabilities make them firmly in the top three positions of minimally invasive enterprises in China. At that time, the function of sealing 7mm blood vessels could only be realized by products of a leading international brand. Ricky, relying on his rich experience in ultrasonic knife development, also realized this function in his new products through technological upgrading.

With the vision of delivering reliable, superior and cost-friendly ultrasonic blade products for the local market, the company invited IDC UK to be its design partner to optimize ergonomic characteristics and surpass its biggest competitor-leading international brands in all aspects.

However, the international leading brand of ultrasonic knife once occupied a leading position in the domestic market, and was the leader in the introduction, promotion and market education of this category in China. Can the UK IDC team eliminate high market acceptance of its products, find innovative opportunities that exceed the availability of competitors, and deliver design results that meet the goals?

The final design results show that local products have the opportunity and ability to match or even surpass international brands in terms of usability.

In order to achieve this goal, IDC and Ricky team agreed on a design process to promote innovation that "needs come from real users and verify to real users.

The UK IDC team has a full and detailed understanding of the interaction characteristics and use process of ultrasonic scalpel handheld devices, so as to split the ergonomic elements into 9 groups of key points including triggers, handles, buttons, knobs, etc., and build an interview plan around them.
IDC set the interview population as experienced doctors from different departments such as general surgery, gastroenterology and gynecology, and the product designer personally conducted in-depth interviews on the use of the equipment.

Observing the operation of the equipment and the micro-expressions of the interviewees during operation, listening and understanding the underlying logic are very helpful in capturing real needs. Due to the differences in hand size and strength, the interviewees have different product usage habits. Sometimes they will share their objective feedback on the product and subjective comments based on personal habits with us. To judge which is objective information requires the design team to have sufficient understanding of the product, deep insight and rich experience.

One of the biggest highlights of the design-by shortening the range of the wrench to reduce the fatigue under continuous operation, that is, it comes entirely from the observation of the operation and the exploration of the underlying logic of the problem.

The analysis of interview information is equally important. Taking into account the detailed description of pain points and requirements, and the weight of the importance of different elements, the design team based on the analysis results, refining design opportunities, planning and design priorities, clear design objectives.

Extensive exploration and full validation drive the process of translating requirements into design.

For example, in the handle design, the IDC team has experienced a variety of products with handles that can be accessed. Research and reference on competing products and products containing similar solutions have helped the team generate rich ideas in brainstorming and have sufficient basis for the optimization of potential ideas.

Prototype testing at all stages of the design to drive iteration of the design.

From the quick verification of the outline form to the details based on feedback, the 3D printing prototype of foamed materials, clay and IDC in-house all played a role.

The selection of the best concepts returns to the real user again. A new round of in-depth interviews focused on trial and feedback on design concepts and preferences for different concepts. At this time, we are very pleased to hear that the interviewed users give more positive affirmation to the new design concept when comparing the new design concept with the competing products.

The final design of the ultrasonic knife hand-held handle trigger, knob, handle, button and other elements to achieve the ergonomic iterative upgrade. Enterprises in the clinical end of the product trial, in the ergonomic aspects of a lot of positive feedback.

A very important significance of the joint design of this product is that Ricky surgery has not only established a high-quality local brand image, but also can quickly carry out a series of product iterations on this basis and efficiently occupy the market.

Ms. Dai, Managing Director of IDC UK, said: We admire the enterprise and are willing to invest in such a rigorous usability design and development process. We are very pleased to be able to work with enterprises to challenge this mature product, through the research and design process to find new opportunities to achieve upgrading. Together with Ricky's excellent design team to develop this generation of products, and successfully laid a high-quality foundation for the rapid launch of the company's subsequent series of products. We hope that users and the market can give positive returns to the efforts of enterprises, and accelerate enterprises to continuously improve their competitiveness in the Chinese market and even the international market.

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