- Current projects
- Support4all
- The Power of Sheffield Journeys
- Photography in Care Homes
- Pain talking
- Non-invasive ventilation
- NIHR Knowledge Mobilisation Research Fellowship
- Insights into telehealth and care technologies (InTaCT)
- Home health monitoring: EyKos HealthHub
- Head Up
- Grip strength and dexterity
- Exhibition in a box
- engagingaging
- Better out-patient services for older people
- Development of design and production system for carbon fibre ankle foot orthoses
- Knowledge Mobilisation
- ‘State of the art’ of Design in Health
- War and Medicine
- Art, Simulation and Surgical Humanities
- Chlamydia testing awareness
- Mobile infusion pump
- Wearable medical monitoring
- Spinal Injury Design Workshops
- Promoting social change by design
- User-Centred Healthcare Design (UCHD)
- Packaging openability
- Where art meets technology
- Tactile map
- Shape of things to come
- Every-sense
- SMART rehabilitation
- Living rooms 1 and 2
- Future Bathroom
- Project archive
- Student projects
Latest news
- Lab4Living goes to Melbourne
- Lab4Living celebrate their ten year anniversary
- Thinking about design and mental well-being in Maltese Healthcare
- Lab4Living embark on new project in end of life care
- Living well with dementia in Scotland
- Lab4Living influencing the health curriculum in Zurich
- Kelham Island
- Exciting new collaboration between Lab4Living and China Academy of Arts
- Design and the Ageing Brain Symposium: Auckland, New Zealand
- Action Alliance: Designing a dementia friendly city
Shape of things to come
This research project offers a different dimension of the role of design in relation to health. The work focused on the design of medical connectors. Traditionally colour is the primary distinguishing factor for staff to use to guide them in setting up equipment. However in the dimly lit conditions of Intensive Care Units this can prove problematic and the consequences of plugging the wrong connector into the wrong device can have serious consequences.
The research looked at how cutaneous senses could be used to inform the design of devices reliant on this sense. It offered a piece of experimental research to increase understanding of the characteristics of exterior shape that are more and less easy to detect via the cutaneous senses.
This study was funded by DoH Health Technology Device Agency and led by Paul in collaboration with the Human factors group at the University of Leeds. It established the ease of differentiating small shapes (appropriate for use as a medical connectors) under three conditions; visual cues only, haptic cues only and both visual and haptic cues.
Working with a commercial partner it was then possible to design and manufacture specific products that have a direct impact on patient safety.