The Challenge
Stryker’s Advanced Guidance Technologies team engaged UEGroup to modernize their navigation platform to improve usability, efficiency, and scalability across procedures, while reducing errors and enabling independent use without sales rep support.
My Role
As design lead, I owned the UX vision for the entire product ecosystem. While I led the end-to-end design of the cranial procedure, another designer focused on the spine procedure, allowing us to test and develop the framework across multiple tools in parallel.
The Results
Stryker launched the redesigned platform as the Q Guidance System. The modular interface is tailored to user workflows, streamlining setup and navigation. The custom visual guidance improves surgical speed, precision, and confidence in the system, enhancing the overall surgical experience. The product is now FDA-approved and in active clinical use.
5
products intEgrated
50%
Step reduction
2,400+
Spine cases in Year 1
$2.3B
product launch
How we did it
Observe users & collaborate with the cross-functional team to adapt the legacy system to new technology and users' natural behaviors
stakeholder interviews
4 Hueristic Evaluations
Initial concepts
31 rounds of iterative research across 5 products
Final design
96
Scrub techs, nurses, & sales rep sessions
101
surgeon sessions
Discovery
In collaboration with clinical specialists, marketing, and the development team, we identified clear frictions where the system did not match user behavior and where the system created barriers for scalability and usability. We needed to address these issues while maintaining as much of the original system's functionality as possible to stick to the release schedule.
Key issues found in the legacy platform
Poor feedback and direction
Doesn’t match the procedural workflow
Unclear organization
Corrective instead of preventative
Inconsistent
Define UX Strategy
Reduce user burdens with a simplified and contextually aware system.
The current system has all options available at all times, unnecessarily increasing system complexity. We set out to create a modular framework that allows users to plug and play different technologies and procedures, breaking the system into micro-workflows presented based on the tools being used and the use patterns of the logged-in surgeon.
Design Iterations
Information architecture improvements
We proposed a dashboard design to act as the launch point for role-specific workflows to allow the flexibility needed while preparing the room for surgery. This made system navigation more efficient and allowed the reuse of pages that are accessed at multiple points in the procedure. This was validated as a desirable direction in the first round of testing with minor refinements as the rest of the system was defined.
Evolution of Planning an Approach
Before starting a biopsy procedure, the surgeon needs to choose a target in the tumor to take the sample and plan an entry point that will cause minimal damage and disruption to the brain tissue. The client originally wanted to reuse the existing method, but we learned from testing that the it did not match users expectations for touchscreen interactions. We designed interactions specific for touch screen inputs to layer on top of an improved version of the existing mouse-driven method. The improvements were shown to be highly impactful, from a 60% success rate to a 100% success rate.
60%
success rate
Starting with the legacy method
Current planning functionality required the user to make a mouse selection and then define the point. This did not match users' expectations of a more modern touchscreen experience.
Iterating with dev team
This wireframe prototype shows our original recommendation of blending legacy methods with modern touch interactions. Touch interactions were needed to adjust the crosshairs, scroll through slices, and drag the target/entry point directly. All interactions need mouse-like precision and visibility during adjustments. Our first recommendation was to use a preview over the user's finger with a more zoomed-in visual of the adjustments. Collaborating with the development team, we landed on a delayed drag that allowed users to make adjustments without their finger blocking the area of interest with much less development effort.
100%
success rate
Gestures were easy to learn and use
Planning touch interactions for the biospy approach was much better. Small refinements were recommended to visually distinguish the entry point from the target.
Added value with AI tools
DTI tracks allow surgeons to understand what brain functions they may disrupt when traversing an area of the brain. Initially, the DTI features and the approach feature were separated, but working with the AI team, we were able to integrate the features to highlight what tracks intersect the trajectory to inform positioning.
Evolution of taking a biopsy
The surgical platform would provide directions on how to align the biopsy arm to the planned approach with gross alignment of the arm and precise alignment of the surgical tube, using four color coded knobs. Originally, the team thought the surgeon would want the freedom to adjust the knobs in any order, but the tool was so complicated that we thought stepped guidance would be more approachable and simpler to operate. Testing showed this was true. We continued to simplify the visual directions as we refined the design through rounds of testing.
The developer's proposal was difficult to interpret for physical alignment
The developers put together a proof of concept based on the requirements marketing put together. Although this system worked and efficiently used the screen layout, the UX was too complicated, lacked guidance, and visual hierarchy. The alignment of the cone was difficult to map to physical adjustments, and the direction of how to adjust the knobs was very small eventhough it was the most important part of the screen at this phase.
80%
success rate
The initial design introduced staged visual guidance
We broke the process up into dedicated pages that would progress automatically once completed, so visual directions and interactions could be tailored to the specific task. We created a phase for gross alignment optimized for getting oriented to the digital representation in physical space. The second step focuses on more detailed alignment, showing instructions along with the anatomy for surgeons to be confident in the trajectory. Aligning the arm to the biopsy trajectory worked very well, but there was still room for improvement. At some points, users were confused about which knob correlated with the arrow and were unsure the meaning of the red cylinder.
100%
success rate
The refined design simplified the visual directions
The reduced visual indicators made the flow easier to follow, reducing the amount of interpretation required to use the system.
The Outcome
Streamlining workflows with an adaptive & aware ecosystem
pages
8
4
Steps
7
5
Clicks
28
18
"That is incredibly cool and very nice. I like that.”
- Dr. Eden
"Once you use it, it’s quite simple... intelligent, nice, impressed.”
- Dr. Preuedello
"Wait. It's dummy proof. Oh, my god… What's the point of being here? ”
