Diane Aston-James
Senior Consultant

Diane is a senior consultant in the Human Factors/User Research group, responsible for the management, planning and implementation of formative and summative research studies both directly for Team’s clients and as part of Team’s product development process.

“What I enjoy most about my role is balancing softer interpersonal skills with the analytical mindset required to deliver great results for our clients. Designing and implementing HF studies is as much an art as a science, and crafting a good interview then analysing the results with clarity is extremely satisfying. Often the key skill lies in knowing what comments and input to ignore – of course I’m interested in learning what potential users think and feel about a product, but I work in the medical device arena so above all I’m focused on identifying and mitigating risk.

It’s an exciting time to be involved in HF work, as regulators are increasingly demanding to see evidence of human factors engineering as an integral part of the product development process. Team’s ability to deliver analytically as well as empirically – half of our group have first degrees in engineering – means that clients know they can rely on us to deliver thoughtful yet rigorous research with recommendations that are appropriate for the technology and manufacturing constraints.”

Diane has a degree in English Literature from the University of Cambridge. She has worked in user research since 2002, and has managed or contributed to dozens of projects involving various drug delivery and surgical devices, including inhalers, pen- and auto-injectors, transdermal and nasal delivery devices. In the past few years she has conducted nearly 1000 interviews with healthcare professionals and patients across a range of therapy areas including diabetes, asthma, Parkinson’s Disease, Hepatitis C, rheumatoid arthritis and cystic fibrosis.