Dentists are accustomed to software that's clunky and focusedheavily on administrative tasks. Carnegie Mellon students havedeveloped a new prototype - called DMD - that's user-friendly andfocused more on clinical needs.

"Most dental software in use today is centered on administrativefunctions, with clinical functions added as an afterthought. We foundthere needs to be a clear separation between the two," explained teammember and usability expert Jaanus Kase (CS '08).

As a capstone project for the Master's in Human-Computer Interactiondegree, four grad students - whose backgrounds include psychology,computer science and interaction design - spent five months visitingdental offices throughout the Pittsburgh area.

"We watched dentists be dentists," Kase said, underscoring howimportant it was to update the product regularly and constantly testeach version with real-life users. "Good design means failing fast andgetting feedback from users as frequently as possible."

Many current dental software packages use nonstandard windowmanagement and dialog interaction techniques that are confusing anderror-prone for first-time users. Even dentists familiar with theWindows interface were confused by the many inconsistencies presentedby the applications.

Among the team's observations: dentists were frustrated over a lackof standard icons and spatial or visual metaphors for many conceptscommonly used in all dental software. So the students designed theirown visual language and kept it consistent throughout DMD.

Another issue: dentists also became frustrated when they performedan action in their current software and wound up in what appeared to bea completely unrelated or unsuspected location in the program. In DMD,users know where they will end up before they perform an action.

The most visible clinical function in all dental software systems isthe hard tissue chart. While DMD has the hard tissue chart, morefunctionality is focused on radiographs, which dentists rely on fordiagnosing. For a brief overview of the DMD system, watch a quick video demo.

Kase noted that medical projects like DMD gave him the opportunityto combine a fairly traditional field with the latest technologybreakthroughs and development methods that he and his team covered inthe M-HCI program.

"It helped me learn more about myself and find my limits. Workingunder the guidance of world-class instructors, I discovered I wascapable of more than I knew," he said.

An added bonus was that the team could work locally with Pitt'sCenter for Dental Informatics, which is part of their School of DentalMedicine. "That facilitated daily cooperation from a top researchcenter, which was really helpful," he pointed out.

Kase said while the program was challenging and intense, he and histeammates - Sam Hashemi, Jackie Weber and Elliott Williams - stillfound time to socialize after working for long days, or on weekends.

"There are so many great venues in Pittsburgh, and we didn't evenget to see them all. Now months after graduation, I am still in touchwith many classmates who have gone out all over the U.S. and all overthe world, and this program was truly a great time and built somelong-lasting friendships."

Story from www.cmu.edu.