To avoid use errors when handling medical equipment, it is important to develop products with a high degree of usability. This can be achieved by performing usability evaluations in the product development process to detect and mitigate potential usability problems. A commonly used method is cognitive walkthrough (CW), but this method shows three weaknesses: poor high-level perspective, insufficient categorisation of detected usability problems, and difficulties in overviewing the analytical results. This paper presents a further development of CW with the aim of overcoming its weaknesses. The new method is called enhanced cognitive walkthrough (ECW). ECW is a proactive analytical method for analysis of potential usability problems. The ECW method has been employed to evaluate user interface designs of medical equipment such as home-care ventilators, infusion pumps, dialysis machines, and insulin pumps. The method has proved capable of identifying several potential use problems in designs.

The Technology Readiness Level or TRL, has a long history at NASA and American Department of Defence (DoD), when designing and testing new technologies. Could this methodology be used in a production system context? Due to the increased information complexity in production systems today new technologies and prototypes have to be developed and tested more frequently. Cognitive automation strategies are becoming a competitive benefit for the companies that have a standardisation when it comes to prototyping and testing. The aim of this paper is to show how the TRL could be used to design supporting ICT-tools for operators in Swedish production. The internal testing has been done at the university lab, and the external tests have been done in two industrial case studies as an input for the results in this paper. Results show that even though it is good to have a structured methodology to follow, it is difficult to put the methodology to use in a different context

BACKGROUND: Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are a common reason for health problems and sick leave in many professions. A work arena where MSDs have not been sufficiently studied is stable work. Here many heavy and repetitive work tasks are perform