UX/UI DESIGN LEAD
UX Strategy, Usability Testing, Design
Duration: 12-Month Redesign
Abbott team: Product manager, Human factors engineer, Developer
Design Solution
The Pulsed Field Ablation System’s interface had grown alongside early clinical use and needed a comprehensive redesign to meet the demands of global commercialization. I led the redesign effort, focusing on intuitive navigation, clear visual feedback, and streamlined workflows — designing to enhance procedural clarity, reduce potential use errors, and speed up task completion.
Final design
Impact and Results
Shipped and approved. I delivered the final UX/UI for the newest Volt™ PFA System software — the system went on to earn CE Mark and FDA approval in 2025 and is now in commercial use in cardiac ablation procedures.
Designed for procedural clarity. Enhanced visualization and control interactions support clinician confidence and precision during ablation delivery, refined through iterative formative usability testing with clinical users.
Engineered against use error. Safety-critical interactions were designed to IEC 62366 usability engineering requirements, using error-prevention patterns such as confirmations, state visibility, and constraint-based controls.
Specific study findings are confidential to Abbott — happy to walk through process and methodology in conversation.
So I asked:
How might we redesign Abbott’s PFA System to reduce complexity, improve usability, and make it suitable for clinical trials and global commercialization while ensuring procedural accuracy, minimizing use errors, and accelerating task completion times?
Goals and Challenges
Design objectives
Constraints
Process
I embraced user-centered design principles throughout the iterative redesign process. B y establishing continuous feedback loops,
I systematically refined the device interface through multiple testing cycles, ensuring it effectively served all users while meeting all clinical and commercial requirements.
I explored two navigation concepts — this flowchart maps the dashboard concept.
Navigation
Comprehensive mapping of the procedural interface showing decision paths, screen relationships, and detailed UI components for the optimized system.
Usability Testing
Iterative design validation through formative usability testing with 8–10 participants per cycle, creating feedback loops to refine the interface per IEC 62366 usability engineering practices.
Prototyping
I created low-fidelity prototypes of the system’s interface to conduct usability testing. This iterative feedback loop helped validate design decisions, identify improvements, and prioritize features before finalizing the interface or moving to development.
Four iterations of the therapy delivery system UI, featuring electrode selection dials, R-wave synchronization, therapy controls, and location tracking
Next Steps
If you’re interested in learning more about the detailed design process and how these outcomes were achieved, I’d be happy to share a comprehensive presentation during an interview.