It’s not unimportant how the product looks

Designer/civil engineer Lisbeth Kamstrup-Holm has taken a Master’s degree in design, and in her thesis she tries to describe and render intelligible the emotional needs of the patients as well as the meeting between the patient as a user and the medico product.

It takes a long time to develop medico products, because they have to live up to many demands and regulations. This means that the products for a large part are only made to be functional and user-friendly. But users with chronic diseases like diabetes or stomy need more than that. They have to live with a medico product attached to their body for the rest of their lives, and they therefore want products that signal personality.

Medico products are often strongly functional based, clinical, masculine and anonymous. Here it is SenSura Flex 2-part colostomy bag. Photo: Coloplast

The users want to express an identity through the product. Rather than hiding it away, they want the product to relate to who they are. The products should be relevant and create an emotional bond. Every time the user is confronted with his/her medico product, he/she is reminded of the chronic disease. This is hard, and it can cause resistance. But if you have a personal relation with the product, it would motivate you more to use it – and to use it correctly.

Even though the medico industry still develops anonymous and clinical products, Lisbeth Kamstrup-Holm thinks that the product development over time will implement the emotional aspects, just like with all other types of products.

The NovoPen gives the impression of being something other than it is, because it was meant to blend in. But that does not help the emotionel connection of the user. NovoPen® 4. Photo: Novo Nordisk