Design Challenge and Design Ideas

Hair loss is one of the main concerns of cancer patients when they are prescribed with chemotherapy treatment, it has a huge psychological impact and dramatically affects patients’ self-confidence.
The objective for the Lily project was to design a device that could help cancer patients to keep their hair using compression therapy treatment. It was a challenge by itself, trying to find the best way of integrating the technology into a device, and to make it comfortable for patients to wear during all their chemotherapy sessions.

Time is precious when fighting against cancer, therefore chemotherapy chair time is extremely valuable, here is where the real challenge was. Users needed a fully portable device so they can leave the chair the moment the chemotherapy infusion is over, also efficient and easy to use for the healthcare professionals. This meant: Integrating a whole electronic and compression system into one wearable device.

How the brief was fulfilled

The Lily device consists of a helmet shell, a helmet casing (halo), a chinstrap, a graphic user interface. Each of these components had its own challenges during the design process.

• Helmet shell: we needed to design a helmet that would cover as much percentage of the # population as possible but, every head is different in shape and dimension. How to find the right shape and size to accommodate the most patients? Data was analysed from thousands of heads from different ethnicities to find the perfect shape and size to our helmet. Thanks to this hard work, our device is suitable for 85% of the general population.
• Halo: Integrating electronic components into such a small space was a big challenge but the team was able to optimise the system to make it fit and perform smoothly.
• Chinstrap: Key component of the Lily device, it keeps the device in place and anchors it, so pressure can be transferred to the scalp. Loads of tolerability testing done here to guarantee that the device will be comfortable for the patients.
• Graphic User Interface: Designing a space for LEDs and buttons might sound easy but, many hours of usability work had to be put into this. The GUI was the component that benefited the most from usability testing, several runs of testing with intended users took us from a confusing interaction to a user-friendly interface with an understandable sequence of lights and buttons to interact with the user.

After many design iterations, a first in human clinical trial completed in Europe, several rounds of tolerability testing, usability testing and focus groups on Ireland and the US, we are proud to say that we were able to materialise a device to continue with the following clinical trials, this device is:

• Fully portable: For the patient to be able to leave the chair once the chemotherapy infusion is over.
• User friendly: Easy interaction between device and user.
• Comfortable for the patients: For it to be worn during full chemotherapy cycles.
• Suitable for 85% of the general population: Universal Design.