JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Robotic spine surgery has continued to evolve since its FDA approval in 2004, with products now including real-time video guidance and navigation during surgery. As the market for robotic surgical devices evolves, it's important to consider usability factors.

Objective:

The primary objective of this study was to determine the user experience of a surgical assistive robotic device. The secondary objective was to evaluate workload, usability test, after scenario questionnaire(ASQ) and system usability scale(SUS). Also, this study compares the workload, usability and satisfaction survey of the device among different occupational groups using the device.

Methods:

Doctors(n=15) and nurses(n=15), the intended users of the surgical assistant robot, participated in the usability evaluation. Participants performed essential scenarios for the surgical assistant robot and provided scenario-specific satisfaction(ASQ), workload(NASA TLX), and usability(SUS) scores.

Results:

Both doctors and nurses had task success rates of 85% or higher for each scenario. ASQ results showed that both doctors and nurses were least satisfied with ease of completing the task of registration(Group1 : 4.73±1.57, Group 2 : 4.47±1.8), amount of time it took(Group1 : 4.47±1.63, Group 2 : 4.40±2.09), and support information satisfaction(Group1 : 5.13±1.50, Group 2 : 5.13±1.89). All participants had low workloads and the overall TLX score had a p-value of 0.767, which is greater than 0.05. The SUS results showed that the overall usability mean for doctors was 64.17(SD: 16.52) and the mean for nurses was 61.67(SD: 19.18), with a p-value of 0.838, which is greater than 0.05, indicating no difference between the two groups.

Conclusions:

In this study, doctors and nurses evaluated the interaction of the device in a simulated environment, the operating room. By evaluating the use experience and usability of the device with real intended users, we can develop a more effective and convenient user interface.