Medical Device — UX / GUI · 2026
Elyra & Elyra Plus Thulium Fiber Laser System
End-to-end UI / UX / Human Factors design for BD's Elyra and Elyra Plus Thulium Fiber Laser System — from initial GUI concept through specification, formative usability and validation of the final coded interface.
End-to-end UI / UX / Human Factors design for the Elyra and Elyra Plus Thulium Fiber Laser System — the first laser system in BD's portfolio, with the GUI designed from scratch. Along for the entire journey from project kickoff through public launch on bd.com.
- Role
- UI / UX / Human Factors Designer — GUI from scratch, multi-modal notifications (GUI, LED ring, audio), alarm-fatigue audio refinement, sterile-field interaction design, label design, instructional video, calibration and feature support, formative usability, dev hand-off and coded-interface validation
- Duration
- Project kickoff → public launch (multi-year programme)
- Tools
- UI design software, Formative usability testing, Human factors, Specification authoring, Audio design, Graphic design, Video
Kickoff: a blank canvas at BD
BD had no prior laser system on the market. I joined at project kickoff to design the GUI from scratch — no legacy interface, no carry-over patterns, no internal design system for this product class.
I defined the interaction model, information architecture and visual language from first principles, anchored in surgical-workflow research and human-factors constraints.
Designing the home and session model
Established the top-level mental model: Default Session (system presets for Lithotripsy, Soft Tissue and BPH) versus Custom Session (user-defined), with quick access to Profiles and the Service Menu.
Profiles and customisable presets
Designed a profile system so clinicians can save and recall preferred energy, frequency and pulse-mode settings per procedure type, with on-screen keyboard entry suited to gloved, sterile-environment touch use.
One cohesive feedback system — GUI, LED ring and audio
Designed the GUI, the device's LED ring and the audio cues as a single, coherent feedback system rather than three independent channels. Every state the laser can be in — standby, ready, emitting, fault, paired, unpaired — has a matched on-screen message, ring colour/behaviour and audio signature, so the room reads the same information whichever channel a clinician happens to be looking or listening to.
Audio was tuned specifically to prevent alarm fatigue in the operating environment: distinct, restrained tones for status changes versus true alarms, with the IEC alarm vocabulary reserved for events that genuinely warrant interruption.
Because Elyra is used in surgery, I designed and tested the interaction model for a surgeon in the sterile field while a scrub nurse or laser technician operates the GUI on their behalf — the LED ring and audio carry status to the surgeon, the GUI carries detail to the operator.
Footswitch — human-factors selection, pairing and failsafes
Advised on the footswitch selection from a human-factors perspective — pedal geometry, separation, travel and tactile feedback for a gloved foot in an OR with cables, drapes and varying floor surfaces.
Designed the pairing process for the wireless footswitch (Elyra Plus only) so the bond between a specific pedal and a specific system is unambiguous, recoverable and visible at a glance on the GUI and LED ring.
Designed failsafes around firing, including anatomical limit indicators that warn the operator before the laser can be discharged outside the intended energy/frequency envelope for the selected procedure and anatomy — turning a silent edge-of-spec condition into an explicit, dismissable acknowledgement.
Industrial-design touchpoints
Collaborated on cart, foot-tray and connector touchpoints where the GUI meets the hardware — labels, iconography and the physical affordances around the screen — and designed the device labels themselves.
Validation, hand-off and launch
Ran iterative formative usability rounds, specified the validated UI for development, supported calibration and feature work, and validated the final coded interface against spec.
Produced the instructional videos embedded in the GUI and the physical device labels.
Stayed with the programme through to public launch on bd.com.
Reference
Video page: https://www.bd.com/en-us/videos/elyra-elyra-plus-thulium-fiber-laser-system
Elyra Thulium Fiber Laser: https://www.bd.com/en-us/products-and-solutions/products/product-families/elyra-thulium-fiber-laser
Elyra Plus Thulium Fiber Laser: https://www.bd.com/en-us/products-and-solutions/products/product-families/elyra-plus-thulium-fiber-laser