Context
A team of PhD students from UW Mechanical Engineering had been developing a specialized tool for visualizing, labeling, and exporting physiological time-series data (ECG, EEG, PPG) for their research. As their project progressed, they faced a critical product decision: should they expand their tool into a generalized solution that could serve the broader medical research community, or keep it focused on their specific domain needs?
The Problem
The engineering team needed validation of this product direction before investing significant development resources. They approached our HCDE team to conduct user research and answer: "Should we develop a generalized tool for visualizing, labeling, and exporting large-scale physiological time-series data, or is this need specific to our project's domain?"
Research Approach
We conducted qualitative user interviews with medical professionals who work directly with physiological data to understand their current workflows, pain points, and tool requirements.