Safe anesthesia – UID improves design of Dixtal's anesthesia unit

The background

Dixtal is a leading Brazilian manufacturer of patient monitoring equipment with 30 years of experience in developing multi-parameter monitors, ventilation units and electrocardiographs for operating rooms and intensive care units. The company has approximately 300 employees and has been part of Philips Electronics since 2008.

The starting point

Dixtal completely redesigned the hardware of its anesthesia unit DX 5010. At the same time, its user interface was optimized and upgraded. The model DX 5010 is used in surgery to continuously administer anesthetics and to monitor ventilation. Thanks to its upgraded functionality, DX 5020 enables better monitoring of the ventilation and more advanced functionalities. It is operated by using a combination of a touch screen display and a touch-turn button on the unit's hardware.

The objectives

One of the objectives was to improve the user experience by enhancing the unit's usability and using a state-of-the-art visual design. Due to the device's advanced features, ventilation modes and parameters, a well laid-out user interface is indispensable in order to enable the simple operation of the DX 5020. Since UID had already successfully accomplished two previous projects for Dixtal, the company now entrusted us once more with this task. Among the requirements UID's user interface experts were asked to meet was a consistent operational concept and design across various Dixtal products.

The procedure

Based on the documentation of the model DX 5010, UID's user interface experts optimized the interaction concept. On the occasion of an on-site visit in Brazil, they gained a first impression of the new hardware and consolidated their drafts with the product design. They then visualized the operational concept using wireframes. In the end, UID refined the drafts and worked out the details of the screen and icon design in close collaboration with Dixtal.

The result

The unit's operational concept and screen design are ideally suited for its use in surgery. The start-up screen displays the most important parameters, e.g. the oxygen supply, as a diagram or a numeric value. All relevant parameters are enlarged and can be configured depending on the ventilation mode used. UID's designers chose standardized medical color codings but used intense colors, which contrast the black background, thus making information clearly visible. This enables fast and efficient monitoring of critical parameters during ventilation and anesthesia, increasing the patients' safety.
The screen design perfectly matches the product design. For example, the switches' current settings as well as any adjustments are reflected on the screen. The icons' positioning on the screen makes it easy to match them with the hardware's actual buttons and switches. In order to ensure a consistent look & feel, the screen design resorts to design elements that were used in other Dixtal units designed with the help of UID.

Project reference from 2011