Illustrative case study · Healthcare & Life Sciences
A device both sides accept, and a setup nobody owns.
Setup for a home-use device could be built for the patient, the family caregiver or both, and the maker had to choose before launch. It also needed to know whether patients would accept the device and what worries each side. We interviewed 250 adults: 100 patients and 150 family caregivers; the report took 12 days.
Illustrative example. The company, scenario, and all figures are fictional. They show UserCue’s method and deliverable format. They do not come from any client study.
The engagement
Illustrative scenariodays, with the report, the data file and a live readout.
Adults who would use the device and family members who help them.
100 patients and 150 family caregivers, including 60 matched pairs.
Nine concerns indexed, with 60 households interviewed apart.
A medical device maker
Who to build setup and onboarding for
Before the launch of a home-use device
AI-moderated interviews with matched household pairs
Acceptance, nine concerns, who would handle setup
Adult patients and unpaid family caregivers
Headline figures
of patients and caregivers find the device acceptable for home use
matched households where patient and caregiver each named the other to set it up
of patients find the device acceptable, against 84% of caregivers
The question
Will patients accept the device, and who should own setup at home?
The device sits in the home and is used daily by an adult patient, often with help from a family member. The device team needed to know how each group sees it, what worries each most, and whether setup and onboarding should be built for the patient, the helper or both.
How acceptable is the device to patients and to caregivers?
What worries each group most about using it at home?
Where do patients and caregivers see it differently?
What we did
How the study ran, start to finish.
- 1Kickoff
Setup for the patient, or the family.
Will patients accept this device at home, and should we build setup for them or for the family member who helps? The kickoff turned it into three questions: acceptance in each group, the top worries of each, and where the two disagree.
- 2Design
Matched pairs, nine concerns.
The screener admitted adult users and the unpaid family members who help them: 100 patients and 150 caregivers, some recruited as pairs from one home. Pairs were interviewed apart so neither shaped the other’s responses, and nine concerns were indexed to the biggest one.
- 3Fielding
250 adults, every worry traced.
Every respondent took part by voice or text, quant and qual in one conversation, a 33-minute median, and each worry was traced to who handles it at home. The researcher read all 287 and removed 37 for duplicate household entries or paid aides, leaving 250.
- 4Analysis
Each side expects the other to set it up.
The researcher matched each patient’s responses to their own caregiver’s in the 60 paired homes to see who each expects to do setup. In 37 of 60 homes, each named the other; caregivers ranked setup their top concern, patients ranked it sixth of nine.
- 5Readout
Nobody owned setup in 37 of 60 homes.
The researcher talked the device team through a 27-page report in a live readout: acceptance, both concern indexes, the paired-home comparison and the full data file. Setup became one guided session for patient and caregiver together, with a quick-start guide written for both.
What we found
Four findings from the report.
Both groups accept the device, caregivers more than patients. Their worries differ: patients worry most about how it looks and sounds in the home, caregivers about setting it up correctly. In matched households the gap becomes a plan with no owner: in 37 of 60, patient and caregiver each expect the other to do the setup.
Both groups accept the device, caregivers more than patients.
79% find the device acceptable for home use: 84% of the 150 caregivers and 71% of the 100 patients. Patients who hesitate talk about how the device would change their home more often than about how it works.
Acceptable for home use, top-two box · n = 250Patients worry most about how the device looks and sounds at home.
Indexed to the top concern, how the device looks and sounds in the home scored 100 and who sees the data 74. Setting it up correctly ranked sixth of nine for patients, at 36.
Patient concern index, indexed to 100 · n = 100Caregivers worry most about setting the device up correctly.
For caregivers the order turns over: setting it up correctly scored 100 and fitting it into the daily routine 69. How the device looks and sounds, the patients’ top concern, ranked seventh for caregivers.
Caregiver concern index, indexed to 100 · n = 150In matched households, each side expects the other to set it up.
Matching each patient’s responses with their own caregiver’s showed the gap. In 37 of the 60 paired homes, each named the other as the person who would set the device up. Only 18 households agreed on who would do it.
“My daughter is better with these things, so I’d leave the setup to her. I’ve never actually asked her.”Patient · Illustrative quote
Illustrative quotes
Three themes behind the numbers.
“What would bother me is it humming on the dresser all night and making my bedroom look like a hospital.”
“Getting it set up right is the part I worry about. I want someone on the phone with me the first time.”
“My father thinks I’m doing the setup. I’d assumed he wanted to do it himself.”
What the device maker did
Three moves made with the report.
Made setup one guided session for both.
Every new home books one guided setup session with the patient and the caregiver together, so setup has an owner before the device arrives.
Rewrote the quick-start guide for two readers.
The guide now names who does each step and opens with the setup checks caregivers ranked as their top concern.
Put a quieter, smaller unit on the roadmap.
How the device looks and sounds, the patients’ top concern, became a design target for the next version.
Illustrative example. The company, scenario, and all figures are fictional. They show UserCue’s method and deliverable format. They do not come from any client study.
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