At a Glance
-Packaging must address the full user ecosystem, moving beyond traditional methods like “voice of the customer.”
-Sustainable design uses eco-friendly materials and tech, integrating functions that add value and meet modern standards.
-Packaging designs should be adaptable, using digital tools for enhanced functionality and user experience.

I’ve been in the medical industry for nearly four decades, and the truth is, we haven’t seen a lot of changes to the “building blocks” that we use to design medical devices, and correspondingly their packaging, for some time.

Today, however, we are seeing a spike in improved best practices, and emerging technologies that will allow us to embed improved value, while at the same time helping us anticipate design risks along the way.

Here is an updated version of the building blocks that we’ve been using.

1. Human Experience Innovation (HXI) focus.
Good product design starts with a deep understanding of end-users’ needs, preferences, and behaviors. This ensures the product is intuitive, easy to use, and addresses real user problems effectively.

Today, however, we need to consider the entire Human Experience (HX) ecosystem to ensure it serves all vested humans in the design. This means we need to go beyond “staged methods” of business case analysis, and dare I say the beloved “voice of the customer” or VOC methods. That’s not to suggest that these are irrelevant; they’re just not, in my view, complete or fully accurate.

2. Functionality, usability, compliance.
The product must perform its intended function reliably and efficiently. It should be user-friendly, with a clear and straightforward interface that allows users to achieve their goals with minimal effort and learning curve.

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This concept is not new, but we must gain better insights into what good functionality and usability truly mean across the five touchpoints of product engagement. This requires using more advanced methods to deliver improved value across these five packaging touchpoints and across a range of user personas.

Needless to say, we need to create technologies that are completely and totally compliant, safe, and efficacious. Leveraging collaborative innovation can help us to a better job of identifying potential product design risks. The best organizations have built out a modern and updated innovation methodology that leverages new best practices.

3. Aesthetics and perceptions.
Visual appeal plays a significant role in product and packaging design. A well-designed product and package should be aesthetically pleasing, incorporating a balance of color, form, texture, and style that attracts and retains users’ interest.

However, we need to think about the psychodynamics of how a range of personas perceive the value of a product based on its design. The physical cosmetics of a package can impact the success of the very device it’s protecting, and therefore should be carefully designed to please the entire engagement ecosystem, across all personas.

4. Sustainability.
Considering the environmental impact of the packaging throughout its lifecycle is crucial. Sustainable design practices involve using eco-friendly materials, minimizing waste, and creating products that are durable and easy to recycle or dispose of responsibly.

We talk a lot about sustainability, but we need to take a deeper look at integrating secondary functionality in package and product design, leveraging new sustainable materials, and participating in the culture of sustainability within our own organization and the customers we serve.

5. Innovation.
Good packaging design often involves innovative thinking, bringing new ideas, technologies, or approaches to solve problems in novel ways. This can differentiate the product in a competitive market and provide unique value to users.

We need to define what innovation is. In a recent survey, the majority of product designers did not have an actionable definition of innovation. I define innovation as “the creation of novel value that serves both the enterprise and the customer.”

Value is a continuum of the unshakable law of risk and reward — typically, low-risk innovations result in low value, whereas high-risk innovations have the potential for high value. The best way to look at innovation is like a stock portfolio; it should include high-risk, high-yield, and low-risk, low-yield innovations to build a portfolio that ultimately delivers high customer and enterprise value.

Nearly 30 years ago, I designed and patented a medical peel pouch that leveraged imagery near the seal area that showed an example of various seal anomalies to the user to prompt them in the event of an inadvertent seal failure. The cost of such a design was essentially zero and it provided real value.

6. Scalability, flexibility, and connectivity.
The design should accommodate future growth and changes. This means creating a product that can be easily updated, expanded, or customized to meet evolving user needs or technological advancements without significant redesign.

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In a time of digital ubiquity, we also need to consider connection architecture to connect our package design to additional value-added resources. This can include using passive radio frequency (RF) sensors, quick response (QR) codes, and other technologies that enable a dynamic, connected solution, providing an improved user experience that differentiates our design from disconnected, inanimate packaging.

We will also see a significant increase in using anticipatory artificial intelligence (AI) and improved business intelligence to provide more value to the marketplace.

How to leverage the six building blocks.
As we explore exciting new best practices, the rapid expansion of emerging technologies, and evolving market demands, it’s essential to reimagine our practices. It is often said that innovation itself has been reinvented, and that is certainly the case in how we gain market insights, develop better designs, and ultimately deploy more impactful innovations.

One effective way to achieve this is by conducting an Innovation Maturity Assessment (IMA) that compares your current practices with emerging design trends, and best practices. This process provides a valuable opportunity to build formal Departmental Innovation Strategies that ensure your assessment insights translate into practical implementation, driving better design outcomes and measurable improvements.

Article source:Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry