Redesign - Identify 4.0
IDENTIFY 4.0 is a redesigned SGRT system that makes planning, positioning, and monitoring faster, clearer, and safer for clinicians.
As lead product designer, I simplified complex workflows and validated the new experience with real users, resulting in higher usability scores and enthusiastic feedback from clinicians.
(Siemens Healthineers)
www.varian.com
Lead Product Designer
Background: what is IDENTIFY?
IDENTIFY is Varian’s Surface Guided Radiation Therapy (SGRT) system, using 3D surface imaging to support accurate and safe radiotherapy delivery. In my UX role, I focused on how the system supports the team across three key phases:-
Planning: the care team defines the optimal treatment position and the paramenters to better monitor the patient such as the tolerances.
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Positioning: at each fraction, IDENTIFY compares the live surface to the reference and guides therapists to adjust the patient into the correct position quickly and accurately.
- Monitoring: During irradiation, the system continuously tracks the patient’s surface and alerts the team (or holds the beam) if motion exceeds defined tolerances.
Let’s dig
First (of many) formative study
On the live version of IDFY we did a initial usability test.
Goals
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Understand how our users perceive and use the current design.
- Asses reactions and acceptance on new potential design.
Hypothesis
In our current design, on certain screens, there are info that are not needed and make the screens cluttered.
The planning tool flow can be improved and made easier to follow.
Users involved
12
RTT | Med Phys | Oncologist
Exercises done
3
Red and green dots | AB Test | Usability test
(Please reach out to know more about this specific study)
The current implementation.
Together with the clinical product manager, we mapped the end-to-end IDENTIFY workflow in detail.
We had to account for several key complexities:
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System integrations: IDENTIFY needed to work across multiple treatment delivery machines, each with slightly different behaviors/workflows and, in some cases, older software versions. This led to two main configurations: a fully integrated setup and a standalone version for non-upgraded machines.
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Transition away from the handheld device: in the new release, we wanted clinicians to be able to use IDFY without relying on the handheld controller. This meant every action that previously existed only on the handheld had to be redesigned and surfaced in the on-screen UI, without adding friction to the clinical workflow.
- Multi-screen environment: the control room already includes several monitors, tablets and consoles from different systems. Any new IDENTIFY UI had to fit into this crowded, high-stress environment (see picture below)
- The planning module needed to gradually migrate to SHUI, Siemens Healthineers’ design system, requiring us to align new UX patterns and visuals with SHUI while keeping the rest of the application consistent and usable during the transition.
One part of the mapped workflow
The environment in the control room
Are we solving their problems?
Over the course of a year, we ran 13 usability studies with radiotherapists and medical physicists.
Total of users involved: 63.
As I redesigned the entire application, I continuously tested every critical workflow to validate decisions and catch issues early.
In addition, we organized on-site observation days at hospitals to study the end-to-end clinical workflow in context, understand real-world usage, and benchmark against competing solutions.
Planning tool - before the redesign
Planning tool - after
THE SUMMATIVE
Results
Over a multi-week evaluation in Baden, Switzerland, we conducted a comprehensive UX assessment of IDENTIFY 4.0 involving 31 clinicians (16 radiation therapists and 15 medical physicists), many with years of SGRT (Surface Guided Radio Therapy) experience.
The summative study showed that IDENTIFY 4.0 performs strongly across usability metrics, with both RTTs and physicists highlighting improvements over the previous version. Users described it as “very user friendly,” “neat,” and “ready to use.”
We tracked the following KPIs:
Use safety
Effectiveness
Use difficulty
Efficiency expert
Usefulness
Ease of use
The graphs below show usefulness and ease of use compared across roles, treatment machines, and software versions. Across all KPIs, we observed an improvement with IDENTIFY 4.0. (Happy to share more via email or during a call).