This week our VP of Strategic Growth, Jeevak Badve delivered an inspirational session on “Designing to Evoke the Right User Response” at the MD&M Conference in Anaheim CA.

MD&M is a massive convergence of four individual conferences, each built around the various industries that together determine the overall state of medical devices and technology. Altogether, it is the world’s largest design and manufacturing event. In addition to covering MedTech, 3D printing, and smart manufacturing, the MD&M creates one place where the medical device community can cross paths annually to swap ideas, find inspiration, overcome challenges, source products, and disrupt healthcare. With something for everyone in the medical device community, MD&M is the definitive “state-of-the-industry” event. As MD&M puts it: “professionals with a drive to innovate and a need to solve problems will feel right at home as they attend sessions led by industry visionaries and explore the latest in medical device product development, new industry regulations, updated ISO standards, and much more.” Learn more about MD&M here.

In the midst of this hotbed for medical innovation and though-leadership, Jeevak’s presentation addressed an essential question often overlooked in the complexities of bringing medical devices to market: Our medical product and service designs must be above reproach from a functional standpoint. But what about from an emotional standpoint?

Jeevak emphasized the fundamental truth that every successful product is always a blend of functional and emotional attributes. You have to consider the industrial design perspective that looks at the emotional forces at work in your product. These emotional elements are evoking a response from your users, whether you’re taking ownership of them or not. So, Jeevak posed, how do you design products that evoke the right response?

He went on to cover the elusive queries of how to meet the spoken and unspoken needs of your multi-users with your product design, how to go about understanding the surrounding culture and ecosystem shaping the interaction between your product and users, and how to infuse your products with those emotion elements that will make it a success for the benefit of humanity. For further reading on the emotional elements of product design, check out some of our library articles like Good Design IS Good Business, and Beauty: The Beast in Industrial Design.

Treated with passion, intellectual rigor and a lively touch of humor, Jeevak’s talk was met with enthusiasm and engagement from the audience. His topic upheld and championed the all-important discourse on human-centric design in the river of ideas and conversations flowing from the conference program at MD&M!