Surgical Science | Instrumental
UX Design + User Research
Introduction
Our team partnered with the company Surgical Science to aid in the development of a software that allows surgeons to create interactive surgical training modules to educate surgeons-in-training on how to perform different procedures.
Our undergraduate capstone team has designed Instrumental, a software that allows practicing surgeons to upload their own surgical procedure video to create interactive training modules. These modules are intended to be published on a platform where surgeons-in-training can easily access them from their personal computers.
Timeline and Scope
This project was completed during a four month time frame from February 2022 to June 2022 as my senior capstone project.
My Contributions
I worked collaboratively with three other designers to build this platform. I played an active role in the entire process. I spearheaded the ideation phase and solely designed the video editing aspect of the platform.
Background
This is an important design area because of the current methods that are used to train surgeons and surgical residents. With hospital resources being a large factor, surgeons are being trained with textbooks, lectures, and videos and then put their knowledge to the test with real patients. This uses the methods of surgeons ‘completing’ training instead of reaching a point of proficiency. This educational approach results in mistakes being made in the operating room on real patients.
Some hospitals can afford virtual reality surgery simulators, and these simulators have changed the way surgeons teach and students learn. Surgeons are able to put their knowledge to the test on these simulators instead of real patients. Unfortunately, these training systems require large amounts of resources to purchase, distribute, and learn how to use. As a result, use of these systems is inaccessible to the vast majority of medical education programs.
There is a need for an affordable and easily accessible way for surgeons and their students to learn and test their knowledge procedures before they perform them in the operating room. Surgeons also need a way to teach their students in an efficient manor that involves assessments.
Overarching Design Question
Our central question throughout our entire project:
“How can we design a software that allows surgeons to create interactive surgical training modules?”
We used this question to guide our research efforts, ideation process and low-fidelity and high fidelity prototype.
Research
Research Questions
We compiled a list of research questions to help answer our overarching design question. We derived our interview and survey questions directly from our research questions.
How do surgeons organize their content when designing a module?
How long are surgeons willing to spend on editing a module?
How closely are surgeons involved in the creation of a module?
How do surgeons decide on the assessment format for the interactive portions of their module?
What module editing tools are important to include within surgical AR training software?
How will surgeons learn to use the Maestro software?
Interviews
Overview
Our team conducted a total of four interviews with surgeons to learn more about their experience teaching with surgical video and utilizing VR/AR simulation technologies. We introduced the proposed software idea to all participants and inquired on how the software might best fit their needs.
Method
We employed a semi-structured interview method. Participants were recruited through Surgical Science’s network and relations with University of Washington Medicine. Interviews were scheduled to last 30 minutes. All interviews were held over Zoom. At each interview, there were three team members, the interviewer and two notetakers. The participants all consented to being recorded, and all interviews were recorded.
Analysis
We encoded audio transcripts from each interview. We then grouped similar codes together and created themes that represented each group of codes. These themes became our interview insights.
Interview Insights
Surgeons face time constraints when making modules.
Surgeons are not tech savvy.
Most users will be educators and fellows.
Learning progression is important. Let students practice basic surgical skills, then teach the procedure, and then teach them how to handle errors or complications that could occur.
Give the participant instant feedback when they make a mistake.
Surveys
Our team created a survey to gauge interest and expectations on the software idea. The survey received responses from 24 surgeons. The survey data was imported into a Google Sheet and Miro for analysis. Any short or long answer responses were affinity mapped to discover themes in the data. Quantitative data was collected on all other survey response types.
Design
Design Requirements
The main findings from the interview and survey studies informed our design requirements. After presenting the research findings and proposed design requirements to our sponsors at Surgical Science, the feedback determined that 3 of the 6 design requirements were out of scope for the group’s project. Moving into the ideation phase, our group only considered the following design requirements:
The creation of a module must be time efficient.
The modules must be easy to pass off from a surgeon to a colleague with limited surgical experience for completion.
Procedural steps and skill learning components must be foundational in the module learning experience.
User Flows
We began our ideation phase by creating user flows. This allowed our team to understand the levels of complexity of moving through this software as a user and make improvements with our main design requirements in mind. Through our user flows, we aimed to map out the following experiences:
Uploading the Surgical Video
Creating a Storyboard of the Training Module
Identifying Video to Be Used In the Module
Creating a Multiple Choice Learning Assessment
Creating a Body Anatomy Identification Learning Assessment
Recording Voiceovers and Adding Captions
Exporting the Training Module
During the process of creating the user flows, we assessed which areas could be improved upon, what may have been missing, and what could be eliminated. Knowing creation of a module must be time efficient and that surgeons consider themselves less tech-savvy according to our research findings, our team as a whole stressed simplicity and time-efficiency when developing the user experience. The user flows shown in the following PDF are the user flows that we created during the user flow process, however, it’s important to note that the user flows evolved over the natural course of the design process.
Whiteboarding
To transition our user flow into a lo-fi prototype, we first sketched frames of our prototype on whiteboards to discuss how our user flows match the interface we envisioned. Sketching these frames before building them in Figma also gave us the opportunity to reassess the interactions we had envisioned while developing our user flows and make improvements. To document our whiteboarding process, we made a timelapse of our whiteboarding sessions.
Low-Fidelity Prototype
Overview
After cementing our interactions and main user interface via our whiteboard sketches, we finalized our lo-fi prototype and developed a basic level of visual cohesion in our design by putting together frames in Figma. The lo-fi prototype is currently 60+ frames. I have highlight the most key frames that illustrate the overall experience and explained their purpose. The following frames are described in the attached PDF:
Library Screen and Creating a New Module
Collecting Procedure Details
Storyboarding
Assigning Video to Tasks Tutorial
Assigning Video to Tasks
Choosing Type of Assessment
Creating a Multiple Choice Question
Anatomy Identification Preview
Voiceovers and Closed Captions
Previewing the Module Before Export
High-Fidelity Prototype
Overview
For the hi-fi prototype, our team continued to work in Figma, strengthening the project by aligning our visual design system with Surgical Science’s official Graphic Guidelines. To act on sponsor feedback given during the lo-fi prototyping phase, minor redesigns and additional software tools were implemented in the hi-fi prototype. Our team went through two rounds of collecting feedback on the hi-fi prototype and making revisions. Once the hi-fi prototyping phase was completed, our team presented our prototype at our capstone showcase. At this showcase, our team won the top award, “Best in Show.”
Unique Aspects of Prototype
Throughout the ideation and prototyping phases, our team prioritized the user group’s needs by designing Instrumental to be an intuitive and time-efficient platform for creation. We believe that the largest distinctions between Instrumental and other video-editing softwares is that:
Surgeons create their own interactive training modules. End users aren’t only learning by watching videos. They’re being actively assessed along the way.
The linear creation process is unique. Many other video-editing softwares begin as a blank canvas that provides you with tools. This can feel intimidating to users that are not familiar with editing video-editing as there’s no clear direction or order in which you create something. Since we’re guiding users through a linear process, users never have to question what they are supposed to be doing. This ultimately saves a lot of time on the user’s end.
Key Features
The process of creating a module is as follows and is described in the following PDF:
Creating a New Module
Uploading Surgical Video
Adding Preliminary Details
Storyboarding
Assigning Video to the Storyboard
Creating Assessments
Adding Voiceovers and Closed Captions
Finalizing & Exporting the Module
Hi-Fidelity Interactive Prototype
Moving Forward
Limitations and Future Recommendations
Our team continues to have many ideas on how to improve on our current hi-fi prototype, but since time is limited, we’ve documented below, in no particular order, what we would have done if we had more time to work on this project. These ideas serve as future recommendations for the team that continues Instrumental’s development.
Build out the login, password, and profile systems. Our design implies login, password, and profile systems, but we didn’t have the time to build out these screens. We prioritized prototyping the main user experience first. Instrumental is intended to be a cloud-based software, and users would have to authenticate themselves with a login. Profile pages of each user could provide their biography and showcase a gallery of all of the modules they’ve published.
Better animated transitions between prototype screens. Currently, all of the interactions between screens on the Figma prototype are instant transitions. To make the prototype more high fidelity, we would have animated the transitions to match what we were envisioning for the actual product. For example, on the storyboarding screens, we wanted the cards that have the steps and tasks listed on them to look like they are swiped to the left.
More assessment types. The current prototype only offers 3 different assessment types, but to make the interactive module more engaging, we believe that there could be more ways to test the user on their knowledge of the material.
Uploading a script file to generate captions instead of having to record voiceovers. The current user experience requires the user to record voiceovers to generate captions. To make it easier to add captions to the creation process, the user should have the option to type captions or upload a script that they can map onto the video making sure that the right text matches up with the right video.
Development of the sharing module platform. Instrumental is a tool for the creation of training modules. Along with that, there needs to come a platform that allows surgeons to share their modules with the public or whomever they choose to give access to. At the beginning of this project, we figured that this sharing platform would be out of our scope since it would require additional research studies on how to share, save, and find modules. The platform would be similar to YouTube.
Adding error states. The current prototype doesn’t showcase what the user would see when something goes wrong. For example, the software should restrict what file types can be uploaded.
Conducting usability tests. If we had more time, we would have loved to conduct usability tests with some of the surgeons from our research studies, however, prototyping took a bit longer than anticipated. We did collect feedback for the prototype but only from sponsors. For the hi-fi prototype, we went through 2 rounds of collecting feedback and improving our designs. If we did do a usability test study, our goals would have been to examine any possible points of confusion as you move through the module creation process.
Adding a transitions panel or considering what a transitions panel could offer. Most video editors allow you to add video transitions at the beginning or end of a video clip or between two video clips. This is so that the experience of watching the video feels smoother and less abrupt when a frame suddenly jumps to another. As a team, we agree that there should be some indication to the user if frames were skipped/not included and that frames should not appear to abruptly change. However, offering the user a video transitions panel may unnecessarily slow down the creation process, because they’d have to choose between multiple different video transition effects and then apply and drag these transitions onto the video clips. A possible solution could be having a single video transition effect that’s automatically applied between clips.
Next Step
Our sponsors will take Instrumental to the product development team at Surgical Science. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished over the past two quarters and look forward to Instrumental’s future.