Principal and Founder, Design Science
A principal and the founder of Design Science, a 20+ person Philadelphia-based firm that specializes in consulting services to optimize the human interface of products for clients, such as ETHICON ENDO-SURGERY, Baxter, J&J, Bayer, Symbol Technologies, Kohler and Maytag. Much of Design Science’s work is concerned with helping to make products fit a more inclusive range of users. Wilcox is the chair of the Human Factors Professional Interest Section of IDSA and a former IDSA VP.
He holds a bachelor's in psychology and anthropology from Tulane, a doctorate in experimental psychology from Penn State and a certificate in business administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has published more than 60 articles in professional journals and given many invited addresses to various organizations.
Wilcox recently served on the engineering committee of the Include 2005 Conference on inclusive design at the RCA in London. He has won design awards from IDSA and from International Design magazine, has guest edited Innovation and has served as a judge in a number of product design awards competitions, including the IDEA and MDEA (Medical Device Excellence Awards), for which he served from 2003-2005. His book, with Michael Wiklund, Designing Usability into Medical Products, was published in the winter of 2005.
Shippō: Did Industrial Design Begin in Japan?
Shippō, i.e., Japanese cloisonné, is an art form that consists of surface decoration achieved by a thin coating of colored glass on a metal substrate. The Japanese brought Shippō, their version of cloisonné, to an extremely high level of refinement in the late 19th century.
It was made assembly-line-fashion in factories. Thus, the “artists” associated with particular works (typically produced in relatively high volumes) were actually industrial designers—they provided the designs, but the products were made by others via an industrial process.
The sublime beauty of Shippō stands as a physical argument that ID should leave room for beautiful, aesthetically-driven design—even in this age of research-driven design conducted by interdisciplinary teams.
Stephen Wilcox, PhD, FIDSA, will briefly cover the history of Shippō and make the case that it was, arguably, the first example of industrial design.
How the Internet of Things is Changing (and will Change) Healthcare Product Development
Presented with Hugh Duberly
In the information revolution, healthcare adoption tends to lag behind other industries. Now, as a new revolution approaches, medical device makers and pharmaceutical companies are beginning to pilot projects with smart, connected devices. This trend signals huge changes in the nature of medical devices—and changes the way they are designed, developed, tested, approved and deployed.
Hugh Dubberly and Stephen Wilcox, PhD, find that a new generation of HCPs (and patients) are beginning to expect devices to connect. Instead, products must now be seen as members of complex product-service ecologies. Data collection, integration, analysis, prediction and visualization are becoming core competencies. The impact on designers goes far beyond graphical user interfaces and app development. Designers must now think in terms of systems and platforms.
Conducting Ethnographic Research in the Operating Room
Presented with Carmella Lee
The primary focus of the workshop was on how to use ethnographic research to support the development of medical devices, particularly surgical instruments. Carmella Lee and Stephen Wilcox showed the proprietary video system that they’ve developed and demonstrate how to set up in the OR and how to capture high quality multiple-channel, high resolution video. The system includes cameras that are handheld, tripod-mounted, on an overhead boom and head-mounted. They discussed synchronizing multiple channels, playing the video back, via the proprietary software and how to use the video to analyze procedures. They also demonstrated the system for measuring physiological stress that they use in conjunction with video. Some other topics included how to get into the OR in the first place, proper conduct in the OR and how to use such video productively as a product-development tool.
What Designers Ought to Know about Research
The presentation will make the case that designers need to know two things about research—how to do some types of research and how to work with professionals who do other types of research. There are many sources of information regarding how designers should conduct research. This paper will focus on what designers should not do when conducting research, namely, pitfalls to avoid. Examples of pitfalls to be discussed include failing to:
