Melek Akan
User Experience Research & Product Design
DOPLOR
Artful reminder for a quiet intensive care
Doplor, an environmental monitoring device, uses moving visuals to convey sound quality in Intensive Care Units. The aim is to increase nurses’ awareness of excessive noise in a friendly manner, thus to incite sound-conscious behavior and improve sound management in intensive care.
Delft University of Technology
Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering
MSc. Integrated Product Design
Advanced Embodiment Design
2019 Spring Semester
AI-Generated Audio Overview
This audio summary was created using NotebookLM, leveraging AI to generate a concise and engaging overview of my UX research project. It highlights the problem, research approach, key insights, and impact in a structured and compelling way.
BACKGROUND
In the Intensive Care Units (ICU), nurses, patients, and their visitors all strive for the recovery of the patient. The ICU is both a working and healing environment, accommodating people with rather different needs and behaviors. To do so, patients need to sleep and nurses need to consult with colleagues or visitors. The NOISE caused by multiple auditory behaviors makes intensive patients not able to sleep well, negatively influence their health. To improve the sound quality in the ICU, the Critical Alarms Lab at TU Delft initiated research projects and design projects in recent years, in collaboration with the Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam. In 2018, master student Roel Redert proposed the concept design of Doplor with the guidance of the Critical Alarms Lab. In 2019, Studio Reverb, the master student team from TU Delft conducted embodiment design and took the product into a testable stage.
Noise Categories
We have observed the daily activities in the ICU and made the audio recordings. In the end, the three main noise sources in the ICU were concluded:
Alarms
Caused by monitoring devices and emergency alerts. Some of the alarms are pre-settled, some are adjusted by nurses.
Speech
The nurses communicate frequently during daily work. The more intensive the work is, the higher the volume is.
Accidents
Noise caused by unexpected reasons, such as falling objects, collisions, etc.
In the current stage, the Department of Adult Intensive Care, Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam already applied anti-noise materials and devices to avoid the noise generation. The next step is to prompt awareness of the whole treatment team. Triggering behavior change of nurses becomes a new concern.
SOLUTION PROCESS
USER RESEARCH
People move around the ICU include doctors, nurses, visitors, and cleaners. Among them, nurses are the health care professionals that always stay close to the patient. They are responsible for daily monitor and immediate care. The work in the ICU is complicated. Nurses need to monitor patient status, react to alarms and have mass conversations with doctors, visitors, and fellow nurses. The nurse team has different sensitiveness towards the noise. Experienced nurses are skilled in daily work. Some of them started their careers in a time when the ICU is quiet. Their sensitiveness towards noise is high. However, the nurses who are less experienced take daily work into first consideration. For them, it is challenging to keep noise management in mind all the time. Supporting them in noise management benefits the whole nurse team.
Solution: an artful reminder
The solution is to design something that could lead to a behavioral change within the ICU, restoring a peaceful environment for patients to recover in. Based on research results, the designer proposed a solution, Doplor. That is, a digital screen visualizes the real-time noise level in the ICU.The name Doplor came from Doppler effect: the loud sound of the moving object muffles away when it has passed. The same effect of muffling noise in the ICU is envisioned using Doplor. After introducing Doplor in the noisy intensive care, the sound levels should decrease gradually as well.
DOPLOR
Doplor uses sound sensors installed in the hallway of the ICU to separate noise into three different categories, namely Alarms, Speech, and incidental. It creates an interactive painting, presenting symbolic growing waves and deeper darker colors when sounds disturbances increase. The icons rotating with the wave indicate the corresponding noise categories. By making nurses aware of the auditory consequences of their behavior, the time between these disturbances will be elongated. As a consequence, patients get in a deeper stage of sleep, making it more difficult to still be awakened by sounds.
Next to changing its casing, we are developing a sound sensor for Doplor. The sensor allows Doplor to recognise and distinguish sound into three categories: Alarms, Speech & Accidents. The sensor is a separate object from the Doplor: it will be placed in a few spots in the ICU’s corridor. The sensor applies a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) on the sound it measures every second. This divides the noise in different frequencies, and also makes all audio unrecognizable. Then the sensor uses a smart algorithm in order to recognise 3 sound categories from the FFT. These values are then used to drive the images of Doplor’s interactive painting.
CASING
SENSORS
THRESHOLDS
HOW TO ACHIEVE
Step 1: Sense and distinguish the noise
The sound in the ICU is composed of multiple sound waves with different frequencies and amplitudes. Studio Reverb developed a noise sensing system. The basic principle is to distinguish the noise into corresponding categories by different frequencies. The sensors are built with Arduino-compatible hardware, being used to collect and classify noise data. They operate and transmit the processed data to the “digital painting” wirelessly via Bluetooth.
Step 2: Visualize the noise
To visualize the sound, the data from the sensor has to be transformed into images. Processing is the tool to use, it is a code writing platform for creating interactive animations. It can communicate with Arduino, which is necessary for transferring the data from the sensors. A screen is used to play dynamic visualizations. The overall noise level is indicated by waves. The waves get darker and move more violently when the environment is getting noisy. The icons represent different noise categories. For example, when incidental noise occurs, the swimming ring rolls in. When the incidental noise disappears,
Step 3: Create awareness
Doplor was tested in the Department of Adult Intensive Care, Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam. The sensors were installed in the hallway, where noise is generated most frequently. The sensors send the sound data to the digital painting installed centrally in the ICU. The sound data drives the dynamic changing of the visualization. When the nurses pass by, they can observe the real-time noise condition of the overall ICU through the screen.
Step 4: Lead to behavior change
When the waves are in a light color, it means the noise level is in control. Nurses do not need to lower their volume. When the waves get darker and move more violently, the nurses can refer to Doplor and see which category of noise should be reduced.Doplor was perceived as a friendly, visually pleasing and non-intrusive feedback device by nurses at Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam.
Features
Clearly remind
The overall noise level and noise categories are presented on the digital painting. This makes the nurses easily recognize the noise condition.
Avoid disturbing daily routine
Doplor is not a medical device. It informs nurses instead of requiring them to interact. This avoids disturbing the nurse’s daily working routine.
Inform in a friendly manner
Doplor conveys the noise information in a friendly manner. It reminds nurses with a pleasing dynamic visual. The wooden frame also conveys a warm feeling.
Further step
Currently, Doplor is still in the testing phase and more studies will be conducted in different hospitals. The product can be improved to give a feedback on a long term noise condition. This can help nurses know about the noise status in different moments.
Doplor is an environmental monitoring device. That is, it can be used not merely in the hospital environment. The visualizations are adjustable since it is programmed.
Concept Design / Client
Critical Alarms Lab (TU Delft)
Embodiment Design
Yiling Liu, Jip Schelling, Peixin Wang, Rob Moleman, Melek Akan
(Studio Reverb at TU Delft)
Dutch Design Week Exhibition Design
Yiling Liu, Peixin Wang, Melek Akan (Studio Reverb at TU Delft)
Coaching Team
Dr Elif Ozcan Vieira, Ir. Stefan Persaud (TU Delft)
Collaboration
Department of Adult Intensive Care, Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam
Special thanks
Dr. Diederik Gommers (MD), Erna Deitmers (Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam)
![Untitled-1 [Recovered].png](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8c2fc9_d9eb0054d2db4ee2bc6e24b72f6e567c~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_940,h_87,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/Untitled-1%20%5BRecovered%5D.png)
Let’s
Connect!
Thank you for reading so far!
If you have any questions, feedback, or just want to chat, or if you’d simply like to learn more about my professional projects, feel free to reach out.
