Use of activity theory-based need finding for biomedical device development
- Resource Type
- Conference
- Authors
- Rismani, Shalaleh; Ratto, Matt; Van der Loos, H. F. Machiel
- Source
- 2016 38th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC) Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2016 IEEE 38th Annual International Conference of the. :4341-4344 Aug, 2016
- Subject
- Bioengineering
Prosthetics
Instruments
Context
Conferences
Stakeholders
Object recognition
Biomedical engineering
- Language
- ISSN
- 1557-170X
1558-4615
Identifying the appropriate needs for biomedical device design is challenging, especially for less structured environments. The paper proposes an alternate need-finding method based on Cultural Historical Activity Theory and expanded to explicitly examine the role of devices within a socioeconomic system. This is compared to a conventional need-finding technique in a preliminary study with engineering student teams. The initial results show that the Activity Theory-based technique allows teams to gain deeper insights into their needs space.