At Level Ex I supervised the level design team in making medical simulations that translated complex medical procedures into simple motions and easily digestible steps that could be done with a mouse or touch screen.

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The problem that I found when I got there was designers were trying to do too much in a single step. An action like twist and pull to remove a tool might be clinically accurate, but designers were trying to do both at once and the interaction was getting muddled. How far does the user twist before the pull becomes available? What if the finger is covering up the indicator for what to do next?

If you allow pulling while twisting won't you end up with the tool clipping through the skin because the animation doesn't match the user's action?

I identified three major problems:

1. During the onboarding/storyboarding process, designers were either not in the room with the salesmen/producers or were not pushing back hard enough against doctors who wanted to be as clinically accurate as possible while ignoring user experience
2. The list of available actions designers wanted to employ was too long and actions too complicated

3. There weren't enough signs and feedback for what to do on certain steps, frustrating users trying to complete the simulated procedure.

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Problem 1 was solved by an agreed upon list of allowed interactions, and I insisted that a designer be present whenever storyboards were discussed. If a single interaction contained multiple actions, designers would call it out and it would be broken up.​

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For problem 2, I identified that nearly every complex surgery, from cataract surgery to knee replacements, could be broken down into the following actions:

- Tap/Click
- Tap/Click and Drag Straight
- Tap/Click and Drag Circular

- Drag and Drop

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For problem 3, doctors would assume that by listing the instruction, users would just understand, so they would gloss over steps. During greybox I would purposefully not share the progress on a module between different teams so I could hijack someone to come test it out and see if they could get through it with the provided instructions. If not, the step got an arrow indicator, glowing circle or a button highlight.

 

Simplifying interactions and having clear guidelines during the storyboard process reduced ambiguity during greybox and reduced development time by weeks.

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On a side note, one of those training simulations was for the Artemis program as a guide to using a special medical scanner. It's cool to think that something I had a hand in developing has gone to the moon and back.