I led the design of the Guided Configurator, the tool Hanger Clinic clinicians use to specify and order custom ankle-foot orthoses (AFOs), replacing orders placed by phone or through a generic web form. It starts from the patient's own mobility goals, then walks the clinician through every measurement, material, and alignment decision in one place, with a live picture of the device they're building.
The order was a phone call and a web form.
Clinicians placed custom AFO orders by calling them in or filling out a generic JotForm. Neither one guided them through the dozens of choices a custom brace needs, from calf circumference and plastic thickness to heel wedge angle and strap placement, and neither showed what the finished device would look like. Specs got missed or misread along the way, which meant follow-up calls, remakes, and patients waiting longer to get moving.
The clinicians knew what the patient needed. The lab knew what it needed to build it. The problems lived in between, in an order format that didn't guide either side.
The right device starts with what the patient wants to do again, not with the catalog.
Open every order with the patient. "Let's get started" shows treatment side, device type, and insurance, then the four mobility tasks the patient struggled with most in their outcomes survey, like walking on uneven grass or stepping up a curb. Clinicians configure with those goals in front of them.
Clinicians think about a device in parts, and not always in the same order.
After choosing the AFO type, clinicians land on a hub with the device illustration and four sections they can add in any order: measurements, materials and design, alignment, and mods and trimlines. A second device, like the other side of a bilateral order, is one click away.
What didn't work first. The first version was a linear wizard, one section after another. Clinicians don't work that way. They often know the alignment before the materials, so a fixed order made them skip ahead and come back. That's what led to the section hub.
Measurements are spatial. A list of empty fields hides where each one is taken.
Put the fields on the anatomy. Each measurement sits next to the exact point on the leg or foot it describes, with a choice to go by impressions or measurements and a quick switch between inches and centimeters.
Materials and colors are hard to picture from a dropdown, and patients, especially kids, care how their brace looks.
Show the device as it's being built. The illustration updates with each choice, and a customization panel lets clinicians pick a transfer pattern, a backup pattern, padding, and strap color together with the patient.
Every specification, in precise clinical terms, on every order. Nothing could be simplified away.
To move quickly through a long form without losing their place, and to get help on the less common fields without leaving the screen.
We kept the full depth and changed how it's met. Fields are grouped the way a device is built. Follow-up fields appear only when an answer needs them, like alignment details once a device is marked for bench alignment. A small reference icon next to technical fields opens an example image. When a term changed, the old name stayed beside the new one, as in "Bench Alignment (formerly Tuning)," so experienced users weren't slowed down by new language.
Before an order goes out, every section collapses into a readable summary next to the finished device. Clinicians can open any section to scan its values, edit it, or remove it. Logistics comes last: shipping and billing addresses, fulfillment details, notes for the lab, and uploads for 3D scans and supporting images.
The Guided Configurator contributed to $3 million in revenue growth over the previous year, while only about a third of clinicians had adopted it.
Start from the patient, even in an ordering tool. Putting the outcomes survey first turned a spec sheet into a clinical decision.
Experts want depth and help at the same time. Conditional fields and in-place references kept the precision fabrication needed without slowing clinicians down.
Next up: adoption. Getting the configurator into the hands of the other two thirds of clinicians is where the next gains are.