LUMC · 2025 · UX & interaction designer

Patients recovering from lung surgery could not use their VR therapy on their own. I rebuilt it so they can.

Patients recovering from thoracic surgery at LUMC could only use one hand. The existing Oculus Quest VR therapy app required two. I redesigned the interaction model for single-hand use from the hospital bed.

Research · Redesign · Clinician-led ward testing

Role

UX & interaction designer

Timeline

3 months, 2025

Team

With LUMC clinicians

Context

LUMC · thoracic surgery recovery

Outcomes

01Patients recovering from surgery can run the VR therapy on their own. It used to take a staff member standing beside them.
02Rebuilt every control for one hand: 2 menu levels instead of a deep tree, and point-and-tap in place of two-handed gestures.
03Went from concept to use on the ward in 3 months, grounded in 5 clinician interviews and observation on site.
04The hospital's clinical technologist has taken the prototype forward on the ward, working to constraints she checked in daily practice.

01 · The problem

Original LUVRE app interface showing small buttons and multi-level menus — The original screen, built for a body that wasn't in this hospital bed.

Two-handed controls for one-handed patients

The original VR therapy app assumed a standing user with both hands free. Its interface used small buttons, multi-level menus, and gestures that required two hands. The patients using it were over 60, recovering from thoracic surgery, lying in hospital beds with tubes and incisions restricting them to one hand.

The gap was structural. The interface asked for two-handed capability, and these patients had one hand free. Every session required a clinician to start, navigate, and sometimes hold the headset. The app worked as software. Making it work as a tool patients could operate on their own was the design problem.

“They couldn’t use it alone, especially after surgery. Most needed help just to start a session.”

Stakeholder, LUMC

02 · Research

Current patient therapy flow mapped from clinical interviews — The old path through the app, with a lot of steps and a lot of friction.

Contextual enquiry and five clinical interviews

Direct patient observation was not permitted. I conducted a contextual enquiry of the ward, treatment rooms, and therapy process to understand the physical environment patients operated in. The Oculus Quest headset sat on a bedside table. Patients picked it up, put it on, and had one free hand to interact.

I interviewed five clinicians to reconstruct the patient experience, three clinical technologists who ran the therapy sessions daily, one nurse, and one head surgeon. The clinical technologist who started and led the study was the primary informant. She described the three therapy types the app offered, guided breathing exercises, distraction therapy using 360° video of familiar places captured in the Netherlands and worldwide, and music therapy. Most patients had never used VR before.

Three priorities emerged from the research, to simplify navigation, design for one-hand use, and reduce cognitive load for people in post-surgery recovery.

03 · The redesign

Redesigned user flow showing simplified two-level menu and point-and-tap interactions — The new path, one hand and two levels, with no dead ends.

One-hand interaction model

Every decision came back to one constraint, that the patient has one free hand. I replaced two-handed gestures with point-and-tap interactions, the kind people already use on a phone. Buttons were sized for limited reach and reduced motor precision. The menu was cut from multiple levels to two.

A dark overlay was added over 360° video content to keep text readable. Every interaction was tested against the same question. Can a patient over 60, in pain, lying down, do this with one hand?

My call

The one-hand constraint shaped every decision.

Bigger buttons, a flatter menu, and a calmer screen all followed from the same physical limit. Removing everything that needed a second hand also removed everything unnecessary.

04 · The interface

Final UI design showing muted colour palette and large tap targets over 360-degree video — Legible text over video, sized for a hand that can barely reach.

VR therapy interface showing a breathing exercise with calming visuals — A breathing session in VR, calm and readable and within reach.

Visual design for recovery

The visual language prioritized low cognitive demand through muted colours, slow transitions, and minimal on-screen elements. These patients were first-time VR users in a post-surgery state. Novelty and visual complexity worked against them.

Controls used familiar gestures over VR-native conventions. Point and tap, like a phone. No pinch, no swipe, no grab. A patient over 60 in pain should not need to learn a new input vocabulary to start a breathing exercise.

My call

Point and tap, like a phone.

Point and tap, like a phone. A VR-native gesture system would have used the medium more fully, but it would have been unusable for a patient over 60 in pain who had never worn a headset. Familiar controls got patients running sessions alone.

05 · The outcome

Patient using redesigned VR therapy interface independently in hospital bed — Therapy a patient can run alone, from the bed.

Independent use in hospital

The clinical technologist ran the redesigned app with patients on the ward. Patients went from needing clinician assistance every session to starting, running, and finishing therapy on their own from their hospital beds.

She ran and reported the ward sessions, where patients who had previously needed help to start a session were completing therapy unaided.

Within three months, the redesign moved from concept to use in a real hospital setting, confirming that single-hand VR interaction works for post-surgery recovery therapy. The clinical technologist has taken the prototype forward on the ward since the handover.

Want the full story?

This page covers the redesign and how it was used on the ward. The pain and recovery outcomes, the clinical effectiveness measurement, and the long-term study are a longer conversation.

If any of it is useful to you, I'd enjoy talking it through — the reasoning, the trade-offs, and the parts that did not work.

Talk through this work

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