Da Vinci Xi
Enhanced point of interaction for robotic surgery
Da Vinci Xi is a surgical robot developed by Intuitive Surgical, a global pioneer in robotic platforms for minimally invasive surgery. It enables surgeons to perform complex procedures by utilizing robotic instruments as natural extensions of their hands and eyes.
During the summer of 2016, I was an product design intern at the UX team of Intuitive Surgical. Through observations and interviews with surgical teams and clinical engineers, I identified challenge of effective interaction with Xi robot in the OR (operating room), especially for clinical staffs other than the surgeon, e.g. circulating nurses, scrub technicians and anesthetists. My design focused on those patient side assistants and how to promote seamless teamwork experience in the OR. After a few rounds of prototyping interactions and usability tests, I delivered a solution of enhanced interfaces for Xi robot and a tiered structure of support for OR users. With the new design, the average troubleshooting time is decreased by half. It was then translated into a storytelling demo featuring future user experience with surgical robots, which was widely received across design, engineering, production and marketing divisions.
Problem Statement
Effective communication has always been a challenge among different staffs in the OR; it becomes even more complicated when we bring robots into the surgical operation. While Intuitive Surgical has developed an amazingly sophisticated console for surgeons, other clinical staffs in the OR, for example, scrub tech or circulating nurses, have to rely on a screen that is far away from them to assist in the surgery. In addition, because the screen is original designed for surgeons, it's hard for assistants to associate information on the screen to the actual robot, which causes potential mismanipulation of robotical arms or surgical instruments.
