An Open Letter to Steve Jobs

Big news this week, Folks.  Apple Inc. has sold its 100-Millionth iPod.  Ah, those perfectly aesthetic little high-tech devices for enjoying your music, yes.  Which gives me an idea... Why, oh why, do consumers everywhere get the most "insanely great" little MP3 player, while we whose lives depend on medical devices get the clunky stuff of yesteryear?  It occured to me that this is never going to change unless we call on the Gods of Consumer Design to champion our cause.  So... I have penned an "Open Letter to Steve Jobs" asking him to tackle the medical device design conundrum on our behalf.

What do you all think?  Would you, could you, sign your name to an appeal like this to the Big Man of Consumer Design-ism?

 

Dear Steve Jobs,

I’m writing to you on behalf of millions of people who walk around wired to little tech devices and won’t leave the house without them. No, I’m not talking about the iPod — and that’s the point. While your brilliant product line enhances the lifestyle of (100) millions, I’m talking about the little devices that keep us alive, the people with chronic conditions.

Let's talk about diabetes, the disease that affects 20 million Americans, and I'm one of them.

Whether blood glucose monitor or insulin pump, thanks to the achievements of medical device companies, we can now live a normal life by constantly monitoring and adjusting our blood sugar levels.

But have you seen these things? They make a Philips GoGear Jukebox HDD1630 MP3 Player look pretty! And it’s not only that: most of these devices are clunky, make weird alarm sounds, are more or less hard to use, and burn quickly through batteries. In other words: their design doesn’t hold a candle to the iPod.

Most people on this planet can't agree on much, but most do agree that Apple knows how to design outstanding high-tech devices. It’s your core expertise. It’s your brand. It’s you and Jonathan Ive.

We are, of course, deeply grateful to the medical device industry for keeping us alive.  Where would we be without them?  But while they’re still struggling with shrinking complex technologies down to a scale where we can attach them, hard-wired, to our bodies, design kinda becomes an afterthought.

This is where the world needs your help, Steve. We’re people first and patients second. We’re children, we’re adults, we’re elderly.  We’re women, we’re men. We’re athletes, we’re lovers.

If insulin pumps or continuous monitors had the form of an iPod Nano, people wouldn’t have to wonder why we wear our “pagers” to our own weddings, or puzzle over that strange bulge under our clothes. If these devices wouldn’t start suddenly and incessantly beeping, strangers wouldn’t lecture us to turn off our "cell phones" at the movie theater.

In short, medical device manufacturers are stuck in a bygone era; they continue to design these products in an engineering-driven, physician-centered bubble. They have not yet grasped the concept that medical devices are also life devices, and therefore need to feel good and look good for the patients using them 24/7, in addition to keeping us alive.

Clearly, we need a visionary to champion this disconnect. We need an organization on the cutting edge of consumer design to get vocal about this issue. Ideally, we need a “gadget guru” like Jonathan Ive to show the medical device industry what is possible.

What we need here is a sweeping change in industry-wide mentality — achievable only if some respected Thought Leader tackles the medical device design topic in a public forum. We therefore implore you, Mr. Jobs, to be that Thought Leader.

We have begun by brainstorming a number of actions that you and/or Apple could take to jumpstart this discussion:

* Sponsor a contest by Apple Inc. for best-designed med device from an independent party, and the winning item will receive a makeover from Jonathan Ive himself

* Conduct a “Med Model Challenge”: the Apple design team takes several existing medical devices and demonstrates how to “pimp” them to be more useful and cool

* Establish Apple Med Design School – offer a course on consumer design concepts to selected engineers from leading pharma companies

We need a creative mind like yours to help change the world, again. We, the undersigned, call upon you to take action now.

Yours Truly,

DDD (Digital Device Dependent)

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Comments

[elinor]

Where do I sign?

Absolutely first rate idea!!

[Jana]

Once again, Amy, you hit the nail on the head! I will be the first to admit that I chose the Minimed pump over the Animas partially because in my opinion it is slightly better looking...

[Felix Kasza]

"Ich bin der Geist, der stets verneint" -- Mephisto

I am sorry to report that I disagree. You are welcome to the iPump, but I'll stick with the stuff that takes years and years to go through testing, and that therefore looks as if it had been designed years ago. Which it was, after all.

Not to mention that life-sustaining devices are the _last_ thing that I want to see coming out of the Reality Distortion Firld enveloping Cupertino.

Cheers,
Felix.

[michael arrington]

best idea I've heard all day. :-)

[ceeque]

great great idea, though I have to admit, the design principles of some recent diabetic equipment looks good but does`nt last...

[Ernesto Jardim]

Good idea, how can we make this visible to Apple ? messages to Apple ?

BTW this article was mentioned in techcrunch.

EJ

[Betsy]

Amen sista! The day the iPhone was introduced, my boss and I had this same conversation. Good design is a beautiful thing! If only all of life's necessities were integrated into one little device. I know I would be a lot more gung ho about a pump if the interface reflected Mac OS X! And if you could listen to your favorite tunes while emailing the doc your numbers all while getting a long run in???? And you wouldn't have to figure out how to attach it to your body...Ah, if only...

[Fred Oliveira]

This sort of problem isn't trivial to tackle, and I personally don't think Apple is the solution, but the real companies doing the design are - IDEO comes to mind immediately. Naturally the end-result is an Apple product, but the design for the iPod came from several other sources.

All this to say I disagree with the idea of making this an apple-centric effort, but am all for coming up with creative ways to get the design community thinking about medical device design and efficiency. That would be a good thing. Addressing Steve Jobs (who I obviously admire, but is definitely not the creative behind the form factor or interaction of the iPod) is going the popular eye-catching way, not the result-returning way.

I'd love to tackle this problem, because I know quite a few people who would benefit from such an effort. Johnathan Ive is talented, but he shouldn't be the ultimate judge for any product beside the apple iLife scope.

[af]

Apple is unlikely to respond. You'd likely do better in approaching the designers of the device themselves. Why not contact an innovator like Tony Faddel directly?

[peter]

Steve Jobs is about results. We speak of 20 million folks in the US who have diabetes...any idea what the global number is? I'd have to imagine the market is large enough as is the need.

There is also an innovation firm in Philadelphia who have done some work in this space that goes beyond glucose monitoring and gets into the food monitoring space. SFGT.

At any rate, send the letter to Apple and the editor of his hometown paper...you never know!!!!

[Ronald Northrip]

Perhaps an email. He keeps an open email address and many people send him letters all the time. I'm sure there is a staff that reads most of it, but you'll likely get a response. I did.

sjobs@mac.com or sjobs@apple.com

I think both work. Good luck.

[Journeywoman]

I love it!

Couldn't agree more.

[Bernard Farrell]

Can I be a naysayer.

There are many in the design field that don't think that highly of the iPod. I think that Apple has is the coolness factor.

Have you tried to use an iPod that has 1,000 songs on it? The user interface is actually pretty lousy. And don't even attempt to listen to classical music on it. The small amount of screen display makes it almost impossible to pick out a specific track.

Despite which, we do have an iPod. Because the alternatives aren't much better.

Amy, this is not to take away from the point of your post. I agree with the issues you raise. As, I believe, does Ruppert over on aiming for grace.

I'd like to see the same letter addressed to Bill Buxton, who really knows about design issues. And he might actually listen. (I don't think you'd get much of a response from Steve Jobs.)

As I was writing, my Dexcom (http://www.bernardfarrell.com/blog/blogger.html) buzzed loudly and beeped in my pocket. Definitely there's lots of room for improvement will all of these devices we depend on for our lives.

Our problem is that the device creators have satisfied our basic needs and then just stopped. We have Functionality and Reliability but none of the other design needs (page 106 of the book Universal Principles of Design) of Usability, Proficiency, and most importantly, Creativity.

[Scott]

Design seems to be the last thing even considered when they make these devices. I agree with Bernard that the iPod isn't necessarily the greatest design but has a coolness factor fueling it. But I would like to remind you of what has happened since competition entered the market. For many years, Minimed was the only player in town. But a startup called Animas (now part of Johnson & Johnson) did introduce design changes with a menu-driven device as opposed to the old Minimed 508. Now, they all have menu-driven controls. But it wouldn't have happened without competition. The same holds true in the insulin market, which is really an oligopoly with little incentive to incorporate good design into their products.

I'm not sure Steve Jobs is the appropriate person to write to, but you might try William C. Weldon, the CEO of J&J or Arthur D. (Art) Collins Jr., CEO of Medtronic.

[Steve M]

I have to disagree with Bernard's comments above concerning the iPod's interface, even with thousands of songs. I have no trouble using a nano for my music. You personally may not like it, but it doesn't mean the design is poor. Coolness factor, as you put it, hardly sells 100 million iPods, there is substance there. Those in the "design field" who ignore this, are probably the ones designing products that aren't selling.

I do agree that there are many markets that are underserved by designers and engineers, but I disagree that Apple should be involved at all in solving them. Apple is good at what they do, precisely because they know what they're good at, and stick to it. You cannot take Apple and smack them into every situation and expect amazing things.

However, you can apply their design philosophy in any situation, and expect results. Others just need to step up and champion the cause, as you have done here.

[Nancy Bohannon MD]

I agree wholeheartedly! It might help people be more willing to be more assertive in their diabetes care.

[Matt Stuhff]

You got linked to on Techcrunch. Woot. Awesome ideas. You make excellent points and would be more than willing to sign this letter. I've had diabetes for going on 14 years now and although the meters have gotten smaller, they still lack a lot of the modern design elements.

[Cath]

This is a brilliant idea! Whether it gets Apple's attention or not, you will certainly have gotten a new discussion started about improving the design and usability of medical devices.

[Manny Hernandez]

I think that Amy's biggest accomplishment with this post of hers has been to shed light on two things that are essential:
1) Bringing attention to diabetes as a true issue, one that is lived by 20 million of us, yet seems to be continually brushed aside and underfunded by the government (this administration, at least) in favor of other uses for our tax money. Getting linked from the home page of TechCrunch is certainly a hit and one that she deserves a lot of credit for, because that is publicity for the cause that can't be bought.

2) Insulin pumps and meters indeed need help to make them more usable and, while personal preferences for or against Apple can be understandable, the important thing is that this need be brought to the forefront like it Amy is doing.

KUDOS to you and for all you do for diabetics, Amy!

P.S. I am digging this too: the more exposure to the issue, the merrier.

[Davin Peterson]

The iPod isn't the only video MP3 player on the market. It unfairly dominates the market. Check out the Creative Zen Vision:M, which is kills the iPod with it's high resoultion screen - 262,000 vs. iPod's 62,000 colors, supports more video formats, has a built in FM-Radio/Recorder and Microphone for voice recording. You can even have background wallpaper instead of the iPod's boring white screen.

[Mary]

Of the five ipods we've owned in my family, two have been defective and were replaced under warranty, one succumbed shortly after the warranty expired, and all five have required periodic resets to correct software glitches. In the fifteen years I've been using an insulin pump, I haven't needed to send one in for repair. Although I love my ipod, I'd never want to stake my life on it!

[dave]

Scott said, 'Coolness factor, as you put it, hardly sells 100 million iPods....'

How many pairs of bell bottom jeans were sold because of coolness? Don't discount coolness. ipod designs are terrible but they're better than the other 2 or 3 main designs.

I think Apple is the wrong company to approach with this idea. It's an awesome conversation - extending usability to medical devices - but Apple isn't the company to solve this problem.

Apple products look cool but cool isn't what you want in a medical device. You want usability.

[Manny Hernandez]

FYI, I just passed this along to someone I know in Apple.

Also, when I went to digg the story, I found the TechCrunch article had already been dugg. Here's the link, so you guys can digg it too:
http://digg.com/hardware/iPod_v_Insulin_Pump

[Ben Kamens]

Sign me up. I've been talking about Apple redesigning my insulin pump for the last 5 years. People like Woz and Jonathan Ives could make these things soooo much smaller and infinitely cooler.

[Emily]

I would be in line for a hot pink iPump! I'm 23 and in the best shape of my life, but now I have a huge pump hanging off of me at all times...it could definitely use an upgrade.

P.S. You talked about people having their "pagers" at their own weddings...mine's coming up soon! Anyone have diabetic/pumping bride advice? I'd love to hear!