The Team W Blog – Behavioral Science, Brain Science, And Design, By Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D.

April 23, 2021April 23, 2021

Human Factors in Healthcare: An interview with Russ Branaghan

Every day around the world thousands of people receive medical treatment. They, or their health care practitioner are using a medical device: an xray machine, a pacemaker, a medication infusion pump… So how well designed is that medical device? Did a human factors expert work on the design to help make it error proof? How can you prevent human error in the use of the device?

In this episode of Human Tech we speak with Russ Branaghan. Russ has a Ph.D. and has worked as a human factors engineer, with a specialty in healthcare for decades. He is President of Research Collective, a human factors and UX consulting firm and the author of Humanizing Healthcare — Human Factors for Medical Device Design, which was published in February of 2021.

Humanizing Healthcare – Human Factors for Medical Device Design: 9783030644321: Medicine & Health Science Books @ Amazon.com

We talk about what it’s like to design medical devices from a human factors point of view Also, in this episode Russ offers to give career advice to anyone who’s interested in getting into the field.

To reach Russ you can email him at russ@research-collective.com

and here is a link to the website of his company: www.research-collective.com

March 17, 2021

Humans Calculate By Feel on the Human Tech Podcast

In this Human Tech podcast episode we talk about behavioral economics, specifically about the idea that people don’t calculate the value of products and services rationally, but they do so by following how they feel about what something is worth. Guthrie walks us through the research and the practical implications.

January 6, 2021January 11, 2021

East vs. West Design: A conversation with Sydney Anh Mai

In this Human Tech podcast episode we talk with Sydney Anh Mai from Kickstarter about differences in design between the East and the West.

Sydney grew up in Vietnam, but then came to school and to work in the US. A Product Designer for Kickstarter, we talk about product design, interaction design, and cultural differences.

December 19, 2020December 19, 2020

We Overestimate Our Own Knowledge, the latest episode on the Human Tech Podcast

If you ask someone how much they know about a particular topic they tend to overestimate their own knowledge. And we tend to rely on our social network to fill in our knowledge gaps.

This illusion about how much we know is the topic of the latest Human Tech podcast episode, where we talk with Drs. Steve Sloman (Brown University) and Phil Fernbach (University of Colorado) who wrote the book, The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone.

November 16, 2020November 16, 2020

Dean Barker, VP for UX at United Health Group on the Human Tech Podcast

On this episode of Human Tech we talk with Dean Barker who is the VP for User Experience for United Health Group, and is also a long time friend and colleague. We talk about the challenges of finding UX staff, challenges in doing UX work at a large corporation, and some of the past projects Dean and I worked on together over the years.

November 15, 2020

Are Virtual Meetings Stressing You Out?

These days my workdays often consist of one online meeting after another. Sometimes I have long streams of back to back meetings with less than 30 seconds in between. Sound familiar?

So on a recent call with a client last week I asked if we could all change our meeting settings so that the default is a 50 minute meeting, not a 60 minute meeting. This would give us all time to refill the water bottle, grab a bite to eat, go to the restroom, get up and do some stretching…

I haven’t had any meeting requests for 50 minutes. They are all 30 minutes (and then back to back) or 60 minutes and back to back.

Anyone tried this? Does it work? Does it help? What other ideas have you tried to make these virtual meeting days less stressful and healthier for our mental and physical well being?

August 11, 2020November 16, 2020

Authors Karl Fast and Stephen Anderson on “Figure It Out”

WOW, WOW, WOW.

If your job involves designing anything, or communicating information to others, then I think you need to read this book.

On this episode of Human Tech we interview Karl Fast and Stephen Anderson about their recently published book: Figure It Out: Getting from Information to Understanding.

On the episode I act like a fan girl at the beginning, but really, the book impressed me that much. It may change the way you think about thinking and how people process information. It should change the way you present and share any kind of information, whether text, visual, digital or physical.

It’s not a “quick bites” type of read. It’s fairly substantial, but it is so well written and with lots and lots of examples, that I recommend it to everyone involved in any kind of information design/communication.

The publisher, Rosenfeld, has a coupon code for us: Go to this webpage:

https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/figure-it-out/

and when you are checking out use this code: humantechfigure0820

for 20% off through October 31, 2020.

June 17, 2020June 22, 2020

Amy Bucher and Behavior Change Design on the Human Tech podcast

Amy Bucher, Vice President of Behavior Change at MadPow, and author of Engaged: Designing for Behavior Change, joins us for this episode on Human Tech.

And if you are interested in purchasing the book the publisher, Rosenfeld, has a coupon code for us: Go to this webpage: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/engaged-designing-for-behavior-change/

and when you are checking out use this code: HumanTechEngaged0620

for 20% off through August 15, 2020.

June 1, 2020June 1, 2020

Remote User Research Episode on Human Tech

In this episode we talk about remote user research — the advantages, disadvantages, and challenges.

April 20, 2020April 20, 2020

It’s Our 100th Episode of the Human Tech Podcast

This is episode 100 of our Human Tech podcast! We talk about how deep learning/AI might be different if machines learned via audio. And we talk a little bit about our current “Covid” world.