Execrable UI Of The Day

[jeshyr]

I spotted the most awful user interface on the IV pump that was used for my saline today ...




Visual description: The front of IV pump, featuring a smallish colour LCD screen and more than 30 coloured areas which appear to be buttons. The button-coloured areas are not raised or marked in any tactile way but are coloured ovals featuring things like arrows pointing to areas at the edge of the screen, numbers 0-9, and some other generic functions like "clear" and "cancel".

The LCD screen has some fairly generic information like the hospital name, patient number, and the number of millilitres of fluid to be infused. The largest words on the screen, in bright blue reverse video, say "Low Battery <30 min. PLUG IN NOW" in capital letters.

It wasn't until I got the nurse to plug it in twice, taken the above photo and sent it to a friend, and vaguely stared at the screen some more that I noticed that there is a small glyph beside the number 7 which vaguely resembles a power point and has a green LED lit up behind it. It's less than 10% of the size of the large text and it's not on the screen - it looks much more like a button than like the screen! The only thing that clued me in that it was informational, after being perplexed about the UI for ages, was the fact there's another glyph directly above it that vaguely resembles a battery and has no LED behind it.

Aside from being hideously bad UI, it confused both the nurses who I alerted about the message - neither they nor I realised that the machine was in fact correctly plugged in because all three of us assumed that plugging in the machine should make the huge error message go away, when in fact it did not. Eventually it went away about 30 minutes after being plugged in - presumably when the battery charge level reached a high enough level.

Today I am feeling sorry for nurses who have to deal with so many different versions of machines and should not have to be technical whizzes!

PS
"Execrable" is very hard to spell.

Comments

[mathsnerd]

IV pumps seem to universally have terrible UIs. I've yet to see one with an intuitive one. And I've seen A LOT of IV pumps. *rolls eyes*

FWIW, when I saw the picture, before I read the entry, I was all confused because of the error message while the pump was *obviously* plugged in due to the green light on the plug symbol. Guess I'm too used to reading IV UIs! :P

Are the saline infusions helping? *hugs*

[jeshyr]

LOL, you're much more used to it then me then!!

The infusions seem to be helping, touch wood, although today has generally sucked and I am muchly tired.

[acelightning]

that's inexcusable, but all too common.

i just acquired a DVD player. now, i consider myself a fairly tech-savvy person, but it took me 45 minutes to set the damn thing up. the colors of the various signal plugs on the TV didn't quite match the colors on the wires that came with the player, although the only possible way to plug them in, while non-color-matched, does seem to work. the instruction manual was in Engrish, which actively made it harder to understand what to do. the instructions to get into "setup" mode were completely incomprehensible, and i only managed to get there by poking a lot of buttons randomly. i think i've got it right, but i can't tell until i manage to get a DVD to play.

now, for an entertainment device, that's just frustrating. but for a piece of medical equipment that a patient's life may depend upon, it's completely inexcusable. it's a good thing that you've got an analytical mind! i suggest you make a note of every device you see that's appallingly badly designed, and write or email the manufacturers. you might save someone else's life!

*hugs*

[jeshyr]

It certainly seems like it's inexcusably stupid, doesn't it? I'll keep my eye out for others ... hopefully not too many!!

Love you,
r

[acelightning]

when i was actually in a hospital bed for most of a week, i don't think i got to see the controls on my IV drip - most of the time it was behind me (i.e., beyond the head of the bed). i was able to see the morphine pump, but the only control i had for it was a big blue remote button... i know i've told that story :-)

i did look into the control room for the LINAC, and the operators would have shown me more if they'd had more time. there was a whole row of computer screens, accompanied by both keyboards and control panels, and it seemed quite efficient. all the radiation techs were very, very good at what they did.

but on the whole, medical technology probably needs more standardization, and more ergonomically designed controls!

love you too, dear penguin!

Urk

[geekosaur]

Is that button above "Options" really yellow on slightly darker yellow?

WTF.

Re: Urk

[jeshyr]

The words are the 'background' pale tan colour, the surrounds are yellow. It actually says "silence" and I know that because they told me to push it when the stupid occlusion alarm goes off - which is about 15 times every 2 hours, or whenever I move my arm.

Stupid UI.

[dragonsally]

You'd just about need a lice3nce to understand that thing. Blimey.

[jeshyr]

Absolutely :/