Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Human Factors
Date Submitted: Oct 24, 2025
Date Accepted: Feb 9, 2026
A summative usability evaluation of an infusion pump through simulation-based testing with nurses: a mixed approach
ABSTRACT
Background:
Suboptimal design of infusion pumps may lead to usage errors, thereby compromising patient safety. Usability evaluation enables medical device design teams to identify and rectify design-related usability issues in a timely manner. Nevertheless, existing research on infusion pump usability continues to exhibit limitations in aspects such as task design and experimental scenarios.
Objective:
The study aimed to evaluate the usability of an infusion pump based on nurses’ simulated use in a usability laboratory designed to simulate an ICU.
Methods:
A total of 12 registered nurses with experience in using infusion pumps participated in this study. Nurses were asked to perform 12 operational tasks using an infusion pump. The participants were also asked to perform seven knowledge tasks, where they were required to find relevant information in the user manual to answer questions. Participants’ behavioral measures (task completion time, frequency of manual query, frequency of asking for assistance from researchers, and frequencies of task difficulties, near-misses, and failures), perceptions (perceived ease of use, perceived concentration level required, perceived likelihood of making programing errors, perceived mental workload, satisfactory, and use intention) were collected to evaluate the usability and identify interface design deficiencies of the pump.
Results:
The study found that the participants were generally able to complete the tasks. All operational tasks were completed within three minutes and all knowledge tasks were completed within two minutes. Our study identified 79 difficult operations, nine near-miss operations, and 36 operation failures. The causes of the above problems were analyzed. Participants generally found the infusion pump to be user-friendly, requiring a medium level of attention resources, and reported low levels of mental workload and likelihood of making programing errors.
Conclusions:
The study results can provide a basis for the design of infusion pumps, help practitioners define the risks of use and the key content of training, and provide an important reference for the design of usability evaluation schemes for medical devices such as infusion pumps. Clinical Trial: Not applicable
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