Designing user interfaces for different user groups: A three-way teleconference system for doctors, patients and assistants using a Remote Medical robot

Abstract

We present the design for a three-way medical teleconference system for communication between a doctor, a patient, and an assistant. The system includes individual doctor-patient and doctor-assistant communication channels, as well as the capability of starting and stopping communication channels separately. The initial system design is based on results of a user requirement analysis. To evaluate the design, we conducted two user studies in which doctors, assistants, and patients used our teleconference system in a simulated examination scenario. The study results show that the general usability of our system was rated as good. However, doctors, patients, and assistants reported that they would like to receive better visualisation of the connection status for the communication channels and the system status of the robot in general. Based on these results, we present an updated design for the teleconference system. We also provide best practices which can help designers of medical teleconference systems.