Interaction Design

At Delve, we believe that mobile, voice, and “interfaceless” applications should consider accessibility before the first line of code is written or the first wireframe is constructed.

Creating a connected device is a bit like making a movie: it has a beginning, middle, and end; challenges to overcome; and an ultimately victorious hero, the user.

There are an infinite number of ways to write the software for an embedded system. How do you decide which way is the right way?

In a world of “ubiquitous computing,” how might technology communicate information without hijacking a person’s attention?

You've grasped the basic anatomy of an IoT device, identified how you’ll connect with and begin to communicate with the cloud, and selected a cloud service provider. It’s time to get prototyping.

Make sure your provider uses a well-known and secure method for communicating.

Meet ruggedized IoT devices, the next frontier in extreme product design.

Why should you invest in a usable user interface?

Where do you fall on the Usability Maturity Ladder?

Connecting a device to the Internet adds layers of complexity.

Today’s users of medical devices expect a consumer-level experience. How can medtech firms make the shift?

A bottom-line approach drives meaningless products. Here are four guidelines for making meaningful wearable tech.

In art, an unfinished work remains unfinished. In design, an unfinished work opens up possibilities for the user.

Digital-physical workflows help us envision what needs to happen in the digital world and the physical world, as well as where the two need to work together.

Regardless of what you're designing, the options you present to users should be simple and straightforward.

Adding a sensor or touchscreen to just about any product has become cheap and straightforward. But it doesn't always make things better for the user.

The acceleration of tech, and especially the mobile revolution, has deeply impacted both the consumer and medical device industries.

Design for misuse is less about modifying users' behavior and more about allowing a tool to continue to be functional, given the likelihood of certain behavior.

Interaction designers have spent decades figuring out the best way to build an interface from scratch. A lot of what we know translates well to smart products.

Good product design considers how a product will be used, in what setting, and what the regulations affecting such usage might be.

Fresh from our webinar, AI & Medical Device Development, we'd like to share a few takeaways from the discussion.

Touchscreens are now tactile. This may have big implications for medical devices and vehicle infotainment systems, where safety and error-reduction are paramount.

Medical device manufacturers need to design for a new kind of user. This has big implications not just for the devices they design but also for how they do business.

While reviewing the early data from our ongoing research on trends in the medical device industry, three unexpected findings caught our eye.

Patients are becoming empowered consumers of healthcare. They bring to medical devices the high expectations formed from their experiences with highly intuitive consumer products—as well as greater risk.

We’ve been experimenting with a new methodology for designing medical devices with hardware/software interactions. Here’s what a new, holistic development process might look like.

Next-generation medical devices with hardware-software interactions need a new, holistic development methodology.

A coffee pod system without a plastic pod. Headphones that read your mind. A touch-sensitive prosthetic hand. Check out the biggest innovations to influence product design in 2022.

How to create a successful product – whether you're designing a product that's physical, digital, or somewhere in between.

A primer on what, how and when the discipline of human factors is used in the design and development of products.

We've been doing remote research since before COVID-19, but the pandemic gave given us a great opportunity to hone our craft.

Teach yourself to become a multilingual digital-physical product design practitioner using five simple strategies.

We have a team roaming the massive Las Vegas Convention Center today at the Consumer Electronics Show, better known as CES. We'll be adding to this blog post throughout the day as we find cool stuff to share.

Humans are drawn to anthropomorphic form in product design. Here's how industrial and interaction designers can use this as a tool.

I’d prefer to never say words Industrial Designer again.

Good mapping makes products easier and more intuitive to use. Done well, it can create a powerful connection between a product and its users.

Medical devices are commonly recalled due to usability issues that can be prevented with proper usability testing during the development lifecycle.

Nudge is a concept rooted in behavioral science that describes how minor changes in product design can markedly affect individual behavior.

The beginning of a new year is a great time for reflection – and what better to reflect on than the last year in design and innovation?

Alec Hill, a biomedical engineering grad student from UW-Madison, and Alex Upadhyaya, an Industrial Designer from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, were half of the 2018 summer intern team at Delve.

Designing appliances increasingly involves and interaction design component. How do you integrate this skill into your development process effectively?

Increasingly, physical products leverage software to enable interesting features and deliver compelling differentiation.

What does it take to run a restaurant?

Now more than ever, society is hungry for simplicity and human connection.

Julie Norvaisas, who is my sister (learn more about sisters in research in this blog), co-founder of Design Strategy and Research at Design Concepts, and now Director of User Experience Research (UER) at LinkedIn, joined us recently to share her perspective on how she approaches user experience research at LinkedIn.

A huge part of a designer’s job is to translate abstract qualities into defining physical attributes and product feature sets.

I recently had an experience that left me thinking about the way in which technology and social media have eroded and blurred the boundaries surrounding our interactions with a company’s products and services.

The Nintendo Switch has a lot of great features, but the modular design leads to some clunky compromises. Ultimately, does it matter?

My colleague Roshelle Ritzenthaler and I recently presented at South by Southwest on “How to Give Design a Seat at the Lean Startup Table.” There was a line around the corner for our talk, which tells me this is a topic on a lot of designers' minds.

Mapping user experiences and systems can help you create more delightful healthcare experiences.

Products designed for accessibility end up making life better for everyone.

Disney fosters a greater sense of fantasy by concealing the mechanisms of personalization.

This presentation provides an overview of user experience design, its origins, some tools and processes and how the practice may evolve in the future.

There was a lot of talk about the Internet of Things this year at SXSW Interactive 2015. And yes, there were a lot of cool Internet-things.

The recent tragedies of workers killed at factories in Germany and India may seem like new phenomena to some because robotic arms were involved, but they’re not.

Design Concepts recently won a Gold Spark Product Award for our industrial design of the Fitlinxx Ampstrip.

Connected devices blur some of the boundaries between hardware and software.

I recently attended the O’Reilly Solid Conference in San Francisco, a fascinating few days examining hardware, software and the Internet of Things (IoT).

I’ve spent the week breaking in a spiffy new Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone. Meh. It’s … fine.

Want to experience connected Zen? Grab a Lyft, the ride sharing service fueled by digital transactions.

The more real something looks and feels, the more likely it is that you’ll receive actionable feedback to validate your design or inform your next iteration.

I was recently at the Interaction15 conference put on by the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) in San Francisco with my colleagues Ken Soliva and Curt Irwin.

We’re on the verge of a fascinating intersection—perhaps collision—as the world of Internet of Things (IoT) technology begins to deeply encroach into the world of medical device development.

CES 2015 (Consumer Electronics Show) wasn’t a year for big unveils and shifts in conversation. Everything was smart, everything had an app, and the Internet of Everything was still an overarching promise for the future.

Medical diagnostics is where the often unwieldy, slow-moving beast of healthcare collides with mind-blowing, quickly changing advances in technology. It is the behind-the-scenes intersection where healthcare workers interact with equipment, day in and day out, in hospitals, clinics, laboratories and universities. This is where fast and accurate results may mean the difference between someone getting the correct diagnosis and treatment in time and, well, not.

How might Leonardo da Vinci operate as a UX designer in the year 2014? I sent him a time machine and asked him.

User interface design patents are more important than ever. Here are tips for designers on how to make the UI patent process work for you.