Use-Lab Podcast – Episode 3: Surrogate Participants

Episode 3 explores one of the biggest challenges in usability engineering for medical devices: how to ensure safety and usability when the actual patient group cannot realistically participate in a study. In high-stakes medical environments, patients are often too ill, emotionally distressed, or physically unreachable — making recruitment both ethically and logistically difficult.

We discuss how “Surrogate Participants” can help bridge this gap. At Use-Lab GmbH, carefully selected participants are identified using methods such as the Saarbrücker Personality Questionnaire to find highly empathetic individuals capable of representing the intended user group. Combined with simulation techniques and physical artifacts like mock implants or specialized equipment, these approaches help create realistic usage scenarios that reflect a patient’s daily reality.

With user errors contributing to a significant proportion of medical device incidents, compliance with standards such as IEC 62366-1 and the Medical Device Regulation (MDR) is about far more than regulatory approval — it is about patient safety. The growing acceptance of these simulation methods, including successful FDA reviews, highlights a clear shift toward more practical and evidence-based usability engineering approaches.

Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/6GtGbjQaPkb7aZbrMVyXZi?si=l41Kg8pHRQOocFZxYhgb2A&nd=1&dlsi=c59bdfb9fbf645f5