User Feedback Sessions

Three rounds of User Feedback were performed to gauge the viability and functionality of the KangaArm through its various design iterations. Feedback sessions were performed with the medical staff of the Jacob's Medical Center and Sharp Mary Birch NICUs. Below is a description of the methods used to gather this feedback as well as the results for the KangaMove Prototypes and Final Design.

Questionnaires were administered to medical staff providing feedback during each session. While the Questionnaires varied slightly between rounds, many of the questions remained the same for ease of comparison between design iterations. The Questionnaires were split into quantative scoring and qualatitive questions.

This section allowed participants to provide scores desired features across each design iteration as well as to provide an overall score. The Feature Scores were done on a 1 to 5 scale. A brief summary of the Features that could be scored are given below:

Intuition

How intuitive do medical staff think the design is? Would they need constant instruction on how to use it? 

Only one demonstration or a user manual? No demonstration?

Sturdiness

How sturdy do medical staff feel the design is? Are they constantly worried about the apparatus breaking?

Confidence in Use

How confident would medical staff feel using this device? Would they never want to use the device? Are 

they excited by the device and do they actively want to use it?

Likelihood of Use

How often do staff feel they will use this device to facilitate skin-to-skin? Do they want to try to use it 

every time? Or only sometimes or only under certain circumstances?

Movement

How do medical staff feel about the positioning and moving the device? Is it smooth and easy? Are there 

aspects they feel would be difficult or uncomfortable over time for them?

In addition to the Feature Scores, medical staff could provide an overall score for the KangaArm on a 1 to 10 scale. Medical staff with experience with the previous Kangamove were also able to provide an overall score for that apparatus for the purposes of comparison and informing design decisions.

In this section providers were asked a series of questions in order to be able to provide specific and more elaborate feedback. The consistent questions appearing in this section across all Feedback rounds are given below.

1. If there was one thing you could improve, what would it be? 

2. Is there anything that you do not want changed at all? (i.e. this feature works perfectly and I want to see it in the final model) 

3. Is there a feature missing on this prototype that you want or need to have in future?

4. Do you have any other comments or suggestions?

In addition to these, the questions listed below only appeared in one round of feedback (the round in which they appeared is noted)

1. If this were to be painted/colored, what color would you like it to be? (Round 1)

2. How do you feel about the two different (vertical) joints? (Round 2)

Between April 23rd and April 27th, 2026, the team spoke to 9 RTs and nurses and collected their ratings on KangaArm Prototype 1 from both the Sharp and Jacobs Medical Center NICUs. The aggregated scores from both NICUs is shown above. For scores split by NICU please see the section below. The 3 low ratings received for sturdiness, confidence, and likelihood of using the design were mainly due to the instability of the ventilator pole clamp. All users noted that their rating would be higher if improvements were made to the ventilator clamp. Additionally, staff at the Jacob's NICU expressed a desire for a retaining wall to be implemented on the Payload Plate in order to doubly safegaurd against ventilator box sliding. These changes would be incorporated into Prototype 2.

Overall, the design and function of Prototype was well liked for its intuition, its smooth movement, and its ideal ergonomics. The Revolute Joint and the Vertical Rotation Joints were particularly praised, resulting in little change to their designs in Prototype 2. 

The improvement in Feature Scores seen between the Sharp and Jacob's NICU can be attributed to an improved plate being added in between the sessions. 

Between May 8th and May 18th, 2026, the team gathered feedback from 9 Jacob's Medical Center NICU staff members on Prototype 2 of the KangaArm. The aggregated Feature Scores from this round are shown above. Prototype 2 featured a new Ventilator Pole Clamp design as well as a Payload Plate with a retaining wall. Beyond simple interaction with the apparatus, the medical staff were also allowed to perform a mock trial of kangaroo treatment with the apparatus in order to more fully evaluate its ergonomics, functionality, and viability for implementation in the NICU setting. 

Overall, the reception of Prototype 2 was significantly improved compared to Prototype 1, with large gains being observed in the Confidence and Likelihood of Use scores shown above. Providers interviewed expressed that the relatively low intuition score was due to the necessity of an initial demonstration to fully understand all the moving parts of the apparatus. Staff expressed this score would be improved if a user manual were provided and/or if stickers were added to the vertical joints, indicating the need to press their buttons to move them. Nonetheless, staff expressed that the overall design was still extremely intuitive, especially for continued and repetitive use. 

The design change requested to be implemented between Prototype 2 and the final design was to extend the retaining wall completely around the top of the Payload Plate, in order to more fully secure the ventilator box.