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Enhancing User Experience: Insights From Frontline Ambulance Staff
User Experience (UX) design relies on truly understanding the people who use the products we are developing. As part of our UX efforts, we are establishing ‘User Personas’, one of which focuses on frontline ambulance staff. Interweave recently collaborated with Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS) interviewing a group of paramedics to gain invaluable insights into how they interact with our systems, the challenges they face, and how we can better support them in their roles.
Our engagement with YAS was hugely beneficial in understanding the needs of paramedics, and it began with Marc Baulk, Product Owner from the Interweave Team spending a day with them. Matthew, a senior paramedic, facilitated a ride-along day where Marc shadowed paramedics in action. This immersive experience provided direct insight into their fast-paced, high-pressure environment.
The day started with interviews with a variety of paramedics to explore their experiences with our systems. We also observed a joint training session between YAS and the fire service, held in an abandoned warehouse. This scenario simulated a rescue operation involving overturned cars.
In these acute situations, paramedics rely on immediate actions, and the use of systems like ours often becomes retrospective. Time is of the essence, and one key takeaway was that our system needs to be intuitive and tailored to their roles.
Paramedics interact with our system differently than other care providers. For example, ambulance teams have their own electronic patient records (EPR) systems, and our product is embedded within them. In many cases, they may not even realise they are using our data. Learnings taken from hearing and witnessing the experiences of ambulance staff will underpin how we evolve our systems going forward.
Our team is thankful to YAS for their willingness to participate and facilitate these interactions. Despite the challenges of coordinating these sessions, their paramedics volunteered their time, demonstrating a commitment to improving user-centred design.
The Interweave team are keen to expand these observation sessions to gain broader insights and work collaboratively to refine our systems. Observations like those with YAS not only provide actionable insights but also strengthen the partnership between clinical users and our development team.
To ensure ongoing refinement, we’re hosting weekly workshops where we encourage users to share their feedback directly. These sessions aim to bridge the gap between clinical practice and system design, fostering collaboration for meaningful improvements.
For those interested in participating, reach out to Marc Baulk at marc.baulk@nhs.net. Together, we can make our system work better for the people who rely on it most.