Abstract

Human factors engineering is a growing field in software development and is defined as the process of applying the knowledge of humans to the design of devices. The focus of human factors engineering is to first understand how humans interact with technology and then how the design of the user interface affects how people use and interact with devices. A good user interface design is key to ensuring that devices are used in a safe and effective manner. Poor user interface design, however, continues to occur, especially in medical devices where human error due to poor design has resulted in injuries and deaths. Incidents with infusion pumps, in particular, have caused an alarming number of such injuries that could have been avoided with improved user interface design. This independent study investigates how the human factors engineering process can be applied to infusion pumps to determine their main user interface design issues and how these can be fixed to reduce these errors. The human factors process was applied to the Sigma Spectrum infusion pump to determine its main user interface issues. An application for an iPad was then created to provide an additional user interface for end users to fix issues found during the evaluation. The final human factors validation testing was then performed on the application to determine if it decreased the number of errors associated with the user interface.

Advisor

Byrnes, Denise

Department

Computer Science

Disciplines

Computer Engineering | Ergonomics

Keywords

Human Factors Engineering, Human Factors, Usability, User Interface, Infusion Pump

Publication Date

2019

Degree Granted

Bachelor of Arts

Document Type

Senior Independent Study Thesis

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© Copyright 2019 Erin Rajewski